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ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND 
LITERATURE. 



BEERS" A CENTURY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. 1776- 
1876. Selections from writers not living in 1S76. i6mo. 435 pp. 

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. Abridged. 
i2mo. 689 pp. 

BRIDGMAN AND DAVIS'S BRIEF DECLAMATIONS. 
Some 200 three-minute declamations, most^" good examples of current 
public speaking, ramo. 381pp. 

BRIGHTS ANGLO-SAXON READER. Edited with notes and 
glossary, nmo. 393 pp. 

TEN BRINK'S HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
Vol. I. To Wiclif. Large i2mo. 409 pp. 

Vol. II. "Wiclif, Chaucer, Earliest Drama. Renaissance. 
Large i2mo. 350 pp. 

CLARK'S PRACTICAL RHETORIC. For instruction in English 
Competition and Revision in Colleges and Intermediate Schools. 
i2mo. 395 pp. 

BRIEFER PRACTICAL RHETORIC. i 2 mo. 31S pp. 

THE ART OF READING ALOUD. i6mo. 159pp. 

CORSON'S HANDBOOK OF ANGLO-SAXON AND EARLY 
ENGLISH. Large irmo. 600pp. 

JOHNSON'S CHIEF LIVES OF THE POETS. Edited by 
Matt \ ld, :: wl lich are appended Macaulay's and Carlyle's 

Essays on Boswell's " Life of Johnson." nmo. 493 pp. Macaulay's 
and Carlyle's ".-.rate. i2mo. Boards, 100 pp. 

LOUNSBURY'S HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 
including a brief account of Anglo-Saxon and early English litera- 
ture. i6mo. 381 pp. 

TAINE'S HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1081 pp. 

Large nmo. 
The same in 2 vols. i2mo. Library edition. 
The same. Abridged and edited by John Fiske. Large nmo. 502 pp. 



HENRY HOLT & CO.. New York, 



( 
REPRESENTATIVE 

ENGLISH LITERATURE 



2s. 



from /69& 

CHAUCER TO TENNYSON 



SELECTED AND SUPPLEMENTED WLTH HISTORLCAL 
CONNECTIONS AND A MAP 




HENRY S.-PANCOAST 



Lecturer on English Literature in the American Society for the 

Extension of University Teaching, Instructor in 

the De Lancey School, Phila. 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1893 



Copyright, 1893* 

by 

HENRY HOLT & CO. 






LC Control Number 




tmp96 031561 



THE 



MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 



AY, N. J- 



u 



TO 

dl>£ pupils, 



PAST AND PRESENT, AMONG WHOM IT IS MY PRIVILEGE 
TO COUNT MANY FRIENDS. 



PREFACE. 



There are already so many text-books of English literature 
that it seems only proper to state why I have added another 
to the list. 

I have attempted to write a book which should answer the 
needs of those who are beginning to teach the subject accord- 
ing to new methods. In our schools the study of English 
literature is at present in an experimental and transition stage. 
In boys' schools especially its value is still practically ques- 
tioned ; its standing uncertain ; the methods of teaching it 
ill defined. Notwithstanding this confusion, there has been 
for some time a growing tendency to abandon the old plan of 
memorizing dry facts about authors and their works, and, in- 
stead, to bring the student into living contact with the litera- 
ture itself. The beginner is no longer put off with "elegant 
extracts" — those scraps and fragments from the banquet : — he 
now knows that Hamlet does not consist of the soliloquy, 
or Julius Ccesar of Mark Antony's oration. 

This study of the great classics in their entirety is an incal- 
culable gain ; but it should not be allowed to wholly super- 
sede .the study of the historical development of the literature. 
In our anxiety to avoid studying the history of the literature 
without the literature, we are in danger of rushing into the 
opposite error, and of studying the literature torn from its liv- 
ing historic and human relations. That the second error is less 
serious than the first affords no sufficient justification ; it is 
serious enough to be avoided. That a great work must be 
interpreted in the light of its time ; that any serious study of 
literature involves the study of history — these and similar 



VI PREFACE. 

propositions have become axioms of literary study and criti- 
cism. But while generally recognized in the higher education, 
there is a disposition to ignore them in our schools ; a dispo- 
sition which the English admission requirements of our col- 
leges are admirably adapted to foster. 

Believing that some historical study of English literature 
should be pursued, with tact and under due restrictions, in 
the upper classes of our secondary schools, I have attempted 
to prepare a book which should put the student in direct con- 
tact with some representative masterpieces, without ignoring 
the study of literature from its historical side. I have tried to 
help the student to study these representative works of the 
great literary epochs in the light of the men and the time 
which produced them ; I have tried to make him feel, further, 
that every literary epoch is but an episode in a continuous and 
intelligible story of literary development. To accomplish this 
within any practicable limits compelled the omission of much 
that I should gladly have included. While I cannot venture 
to hope that I have always shown a right appreciation of rela- 
tive values, I believe the general principles of selection in 
such a case to be .plain and indisputable, however difficult of 
application. I have endeavored to awaken an interest in a 
few great authors, and that I might treat of them at compara- 
tive length I have unhesitatingly passed over a host of other 
writers, believing that they could be safely left for more 
advanced work. The literary tables will give the student 
some idea of the great names of the respective periods. 

The manner in which the book should be used depends 
upon the needs of each particular class and must be left 
largely to the tact and judgment of the teacher. The teacher 
is more than any text-book, and I have tried to recognize this 
by making the present handbook as flexible as possible. 
Thus when the class is a comparatively elementary one, some 
of the historical matter might be omitted, and the time spent 
on the selected works with the biographical and other sections 
immediately related to them. If the class is an advanced one, 
free use of the reference lists and footnotes will enable it to 



PREFACE. Vll 

pursue many subjects merely hinted at in the text This should 
be done whenever possible, and the student encouraged in an 
intelligent use of books. The teacher can easily supplement 
the selections here given, or, if needs be, substitute others. 
In the case of shorter poems, Ward's English Poets will be 
found invaluable for this purpose. Many topics lightly 
touched on — as The Influence of Patriotism on the English 
Drama ; Wordsworth and Carlyle : their Points of Contact — 
may be used as subjects for essays, if the class is far enough 
advanced. 

Unless the class is a backward one I would insist upon 
its thoroughly mastering the first, or general, literary table, 
(pp. 7 and 8) ; the other tables are meant for reference. The 
greater number of authors demanding mention in the Modern 
Period forced me to omit biographical details. These can, 
however, be easily supplied. Poetry necessarily occupies a 
larger space than prose in the selections, as most prose master- 
pieces, otherwise desirable, proved too long for insertion. To 
partially remedy this I have treated of certain prose writers, 
particularly the recent novelists, at comparative length, and 
when time allows some of their works might profitably be 
read by the class. 

Lack of space has forced me to greatly restrict the notes to 
the selections, but, with a capable teacher and a few reference 
books, I believe this will prove rather an advantage than 
otherwise. 

Before attempting a book like the present the pupil 
should have some acquaintance with good writers. We 
can hardly begin too early to develop a literary taste. 
During his early years at school the pupil should be persist- 
ently familiarized with much that is excellent in our literature 
as a preparation for his after study. A large body of litera- 
ture, is within his grasp, which he may be led to enjoy without 
regard to historical development. Such poems as " The 
Lady of the Lake," " Marmion," " Rokeby," " Evangeline," 
" Miles Standish," " The Vision of Sir Launfal," " The Lays 
of Ancient Rome " ; shorter pieces, some of which can be 



VHl PREFACE. 

committed to memory, as " The Battle of the Baltic," " The 
Defense of Lucknow," " The Pied Piper of Hamelin," " The 
Wreck of the Hesperus," and a host of others ; certain 
plays of Shakespeare — Julius Ccesar and The Merchant of 
Venice are among the best for the purpose — all these can be 
used to educate the literary sense In prose, the range of 
available classics is perhaps even wider : 'Rip van Winkle, 
and many of Irving's sketches, Hawthorne's Wonderbook. 
Mrs. Ewing's stories. Lanier's King Arthur and Mabino- 
geon and Bullfinch's Age of Chivalry will serve as an in- 
troduction to the Middle Ages ; Kingsley's Greek Heroes 
and Church's Stories from Homer, to classic times. Con- 
stant early association with such books will prepare a 
student to enter with intelligent enjoyment on the study of 
literature in some of its historical connections. 

In conclusion, I most sincerely thank my many helpers and 
well-wishers. My indebtedness to others cannot be repaid or 
over-estimated . in a world where " everything is bought and 
sold " it is a wholesome and a beautiful thing to find that so 
much kindly help and good will can be "had for the asking." 

The admirable index is the work of Mr. Albert J. Edmunds. 

H. S. P. 

Germantown, December 7, 1892. 



CONTENTS 



ITntrofcmctiom 

PAGE 

What Literature is I 

The Great Divisions of English Literature 4 

General Table of its Four Periods 7 



pavt 1. 

THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION.— 670-1400. 

CHAPTER I. Race, Literature, and Language Before 
Chaucer. 

The Making of the Race 12 

Literature Before the Norman Conquest 18 

The Norman Conquest 20 

The Making of the Language 22 

Table of Early English Literature 25 

General and Special Notes and References 26 

CHAPTER II. Geoffrey Chaucer. 

Chaucer's Century 27 

Chaucer's Life 30 

Chaucer's Works 34 

Language and Versification 36 

The Canterbury Tales 38 

Introduction to The Nonne Preste's Tale 44 

Geoffrey Chaucer. 

The A T onne Prestes Tale 47 

Good Counseil 59 

Notes and References 60 

Table of Chaucer's Century 61 



X CONTENTS. 

part If, 

THE PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE.— 1400-1660. 
CHAPTER I. The Revival of Learning. 

PAGE 

The Coming of the New Learning to England 65 

The Expression of the New Learning in Literature 69 

Elizabethan England 72 

Edmund Spenser 77 

Prothalamion 82 

The English Drama Before Shakespeare 87^ 

William Shakespeare. 96 

Table of Shakespeare's Works 105 

Introduction to The Merchant of Venice 106 

The Merchant of Venice 1 14 

Francis Bacon 187 

Of Great Place 191 

Elizabethan Songs 194 

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Marlowe 194 

Good-morrow Thomas Heywood 195 

The Noble Nature Ben Jonson 196 

Song Shakespeare 196 

Sonnet Shakespeare 197 

Tables : The Revival of Learning. The Rise of the Drama. 

The Elizabethan Period 198-203 

Notes and References 204 

CHAPTER II. The Puritan in Literature. 

The England of Milton 205 

Later Elizabethan Literature 209 

The Seventeenth Century Lyrists 210 

To Daffodils Herrick 213 

To the Virgins Herrick 214 

Vertue Herbert 214 

Going to the Wars Lovelace 215 

The Retreate Vaughan 215 

John Milton 216"* 

U Allegro 227 

// Penseroso 232 

Sonnets 238 

Table of the Puritan Period 240 

Notes and References 242 



CONTENTS. XI 



part Mir. 

THE PERIOD OF FRENCH INFLUENCE.— 1660- 
cir. 1750. 

AGE 

The England of the Restoration 245 

John Dryden. 

Song for Si. Cecilia s Day 251 

The Eighteenth Century Essays 253 

Joseph Addison 258 

Ned Softly the Poet 260 

Sir Roger at Church 263 

The Fine Lady s Journal 265 

Alexander Pope 269 

Introduction to The Rape of the Lock 275 

The Rape of the Lock 280 

Table of Period of French Influence 307 

Notes and References 3 IQ 



part W. 

THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 
CHAPTER I. The Beginning of Modern Literature. 

The Reactionary Movement 313 

Johnson and the Older Literature 317 

Robert Burns 326 

To a Mouse 328 

Bruce' s Address to His Army at Bannockburn 330 

A Man's a Man for a' That 330 

A Red, Red Rose ' 331 

The Era of Revolution 332 

William Wordsworth 334 

Ode to Duty 338 

Milton 339 

At the Grave of Burns, 1803 340 

The Solitary Reaper 342 

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1803 343 

Written in London, September, 1802 , 343 



Xli CONTEXTS. 

PAGE 

S. T. Coleridge ■ 344 

Introduction to The Ancient Mariner 349 

The Ancient Mariner - ; ; 

Sir Walter Scott 372 

The Battle of Beal'an Dume 379 

County Guy 585 

Border Ballad 385 

Charles Lamb 356 

Christ's Hospital Five-and- Thirty Years Ago 388 

Byron, Shelley, and Keats 399 

Lord Byron. 

From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 405 

Sonnet on Chillon 407 

P. B. Shelley. 

To a Skylark. 407 

John Keats. 

Ode 071 a Grecian L r rn 412 

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer 413 

CHAPTER II. Recent Writers. 

The New Era in Literature, History, and Science 414 

Macaulay, Carlyle, Raskin, and Recent Prose 416 

The Growth of the Novel 420 

Dickens. Thackeray, George Eliot 421 

Recent Poetry 427 

The Poetry of Evasion 42S 

The Poetry of Doubt : Arnold and Clough 42 S 

The Poetry of Faith and Hope 429 

Tennyson and Robert Browning 429 

Thomas Carlyle. 

On Robert Bums 435 

T. B. Macaulay. 

On Samuel Johnson 441 

Robert Browning. 

Evelyn Hope 472 

Mulye'keh '. 474 

My Last Duchess .' ' - " 8 

Epilogue 479 

Alfred Tennyson. 

Ode. On the Death of the Duke of Wellington 4S0 

Tears, Ldle Tears 487 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

PAGE 

Alfred Tennyson — Cont. 

Song of Arthur s Knights 488 

Crossing the Bar 489 

Table of Modern English Period 490 

Notes and References 492 



Literary Map of England „ „ . . 494 

List of Authors to Accompany Map 495 

Chaucer Glossary 497 

Index 503 






REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISH 
LITERATURE. 



Ifntrofcuction, 

I. — What Literature is. 

The word literature is used in two distinct senses: 

(a) Its first and literal meaning is — something written, 
from the Latin, litem, a letter of the alphabet, an in- 
scription, a writing, a manuscript, a book, etc. In this 
general sense the literature of a nation includes all the 
books it has produced, without respect to subject or ex- 
cellence. 

(b) By literature, in its secondary and more restricted 
sense, we mean one especial kind of written composition, 
the character of which may be indicated but not strictly 
defined. Works of literature in this narrower sense aim 
to please, to awaken thought, feeling, or imagination, 
rather than to instruct ; they are addressed to no special 
class of readers, and they possess an excellence of expres- 
sion which entitles them to rank as works of art. Like 
painting, music, or sculpture, literature is concerned 
mainly with feelings, and, in this, is distinguished from the 
books of knowledge, or science, whose first object is to 
teach facts.* Much that is literature in the strictest sense 
does deal with facts, whether of history or of science, but 

* " To ascertain and communicate facts is the object of science; to 
quicken our life into a higher consciousness through the feelings is the func- 
tion of art." — " The Scientific Movement and Literature," in "Studies in 
Literature," by Edward Dowden, p. 95. 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

it uses these facts to arouse the feelings or to please the 
imagination. It takes them out of a special department of 
knowledge and makes them of universal interest, and it 
expresses them in a form of permanent beauty or value. 
Shakespeare's historical plays, Carlyle's French Revolu- 
tion, or an essay of De Quincey or Macaulay, while 
they tell us facts, fulfill these conditions, and are strictly 
literature ; and, in general, poetry, histories, biographies, 
novels, essays, and the like, may be included in this 
class. It is in this stricter sense that we shall here- 
after use the word. 

Literature is occupied chiefly with the great elemen- 
tary feelings and passions which are a necessary part of 
human nature. Such feelings as worship, love, hate, 
The perma- f ear > ambition, remorse, jealousy, are com- 
ve? s C aiit a y of Lk- nion to man, and, through them, men, sepa- 
erature. rated by education or surroundings, are able 

to sympathize with or understand each other. Literature, 
expressing and appealing to such feelings, shares in their 
permanence and universality. In the poetry of the 
Persian Omar Khayyam, of the Greek Anacreon, of the 
Roman Horace, and of the English Robert Herrick, we 
find the same familiar mood. Each is troubled by the 
pathetic shortness of human life ; each shrinks from the 
thought of death and tries to dispel it with the half-de- 
spairing resolve to enjoy life while it lasts. Neither 
time nor place prevents us from entering into the work 
of each of these poets, in many respects so widely sepa- 
rated, because they express alike a common human feel- 
ing, which we can understand through imagination or 
experience. So the Antigone of Sophocles and the 
King Lear of Shakespeare treat of the same elemen- 
tary feeling, the love between parent and child, and, 
while that feeling lasts, those immortal portrayals of it 
will be admired and understood. 



WHAT LITERATURE IS. 3 

Finally, works of literature have a beauty, power, and 
individuality of expression, which helps to make them 
both permanent and universal. Not only is there a value 
in the thought or feelings contained in a lit- 

. ... Literary Style. 

erary masterpiece ; there is a distinct and 
added value in the special form in which thought and feel- 
ing have been embodied. Each great writer has his own 
style or manner, his characteristic way of addressing us. 
This style is the expression of his personal character ; 
we learn to know him by it, as we recognize a man by 
his gait or by the tones of his voice. This personal ele- 
ment is another distinguishing feature of literature, and 
further separates it from books of science. 

Through his books a great writer expresses a part of 
his inner self. He is impelled to give us, as best he can 
through written words, the most that he has gained by 
his experience. In the poet's verse, we read 

.... The Study of 

the lesson he has learned from living; it is English Litera- 

ture. 

warm and alive for all time with his sorrows, 
exaltations, hopes, or despairs. Literature is born of 
life, and it is in this sense that Milton calls a good book 
" the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and 
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life."* 

Thus we learn to look on the works of each great writer 
as an actual part of a human life, mysteriously pre- 
served and communicated to us. But we must go farther, 
and realize that each nation as well as each individual has 
a distinct character and a continuous inner life; that, in 
generation after generation, men and women have lived 
who have embodied in literature, not their own souls 
merely, but some deep thought or feeling of their time 
and nation. Often thousands feel dumbly what the great 
writer alone is able to express. Accordingly literature is 
not merely personal but national. The character of a 
nation manifested through action, we commonly call its 

* Milton's " Areopagitica." 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

history ; the character of a nation written down in its 
books, or throbbing in its dramas, songs, and ballads, we 
call its literattire. For more than twelve hundred years, 
the English people has been revealing its life, and its 
way of looking at life, through its books : to study 
English literature is, therefore, to study one great expres- 
sion of the character and historic development of the 
English race. 

II. — The Great Divisions of English Literature. 

When we look at this life of the English race as ex- 
pressed in literature through more than twelve centuries, 
we find that it possesses marked characteristics at cer- 
tain periods. For centuries the mind of England is 
stimulated and influenced by a foreign civilization. The 
nation and its literature, like the individual life, pass 
through moods of faith and passion, of frivolity and 
unbelief. English literature, reflecting or expressing 
these varied influences, or changing moods, naturally 
divides itself into the following four great periods of 
development : 

i. The Period of Preparation ; 670 to about 1400. 

2. The Period of Italia?i Influence; about \Apo to 1660. 

3. The Period of French Influence ; 1660 to about 1750. 

4. The Modern English Period ; since 1750. 

These divisions must be broadly laid down at the 
start, although their meaning will become plainer as we 
advance. 

I.— The Period of Preparation. From 670 to about 1400. 

During this period England made for her use a na- 
tional language. During this time also the various races 
and tribes whose intermixture makes the modern Eng- 
lish, became substantially one people. 



THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION. $ 

In order to have a great national literature it is neces- 
sary to have a great national language. Such a language 
England did not always possess. The settlement of the 
island by different races or tribes, each having a different 
speech or dialect, made England for centuries a land of 
confusion of tongues. The Norman Conquest (1066) 
brought for a time another element of confusion by the 
introduction of French. During the fourteenth century 
the language spoken in and about London, a form of 
English largely mixed with French, asserted its suprem- 
acy. This English became more and more generally 
established, and from it the language we speak to-day, 
however enlarged or modified, is directly derived. The 
centuries during which England was forming her national 
speech stand by themselves in the history of her litera- 
ture. Like a child she struggles with the difficulties of 
language. Some write in one or another kind of Eng- 
lish, some in Latin, some in French. By the end of the 
fourteenth century this difficulty is conquered ; we pass 
out of the centuries of preparation into those of greater 
literary expression. 

II. — The Period of Italian Influence. From about 1400 to 1660. 

Late in the fourteenth century the mind of England 
became greatly stimulated and directed by an influence 
from without. England began to share in the Renais- 
sance, or the awakening of the mind of Europe to a new 
culture, a fresh delight in life and in beauty, a new enthu- 
siasm for freedom in thought and action. This great 
movement first took shape in Italy. Nation after nation 
kindled with the ardor of the new spirit, and England, 
like the rest, drew from Italy knowledge and inspiration. 
Education in England was transformed by men who 
learned in Florence or in Bologna what they taught at 
Oxford or at Cambridge,, until the New Learning and 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

the new spirit found their unrivaled literary expression 
in the reigns of Elizabeth and James (i 558—1625). 

III. — The Period of French Influence. From 1660 to about 1750. 
After the new thoughts and mighty passions that came 
with the Renaissance had spent their force, England 
seemed for the time to have grown tired of great feelings 
either in poetry or in religion. She became scientific, 
intellectual, cold, and inclined to attach great importance 
to the style or manner of writing, thinking that great 
works were produced by study and art rather than by 
the inspiration of genius. This tendency was encour- 
aged, perhaps originated, by the example and influence 
of the French. This was during the brilliant reign of 
Louis XIV., when such writers as Moliere, Racine, Cor- 
?ieille, and Boileau, were making French literature and lit- 
erary standards fashionable in Europe. Charles II. 
ascended the throne in 1660, after his youth of exile on 
the Continent, bringing with him a liking for things 
French ; and for awhile some English writers tried to com- 
pose according'to the prescription laid down by Boileau 
and his followers. 

IV. — The Modern English Period. Since about 1750. 

During this final period England outgrew her tempo- 
rary mood of unbelief, criticism, and shallowness, and with 
it her reliance on the literary style of France. She has 
again expressed in her literature new and deep feelings; 
a wider love for mankind and a belief in the brotherhood 
of all men ; a new power of entering into the life of 
nature. She has depended little for her inspiration on 
other nations, although to some extent influenced by 
Germany and Italy, and has produced literary- works 
second only to those of the Elizabethan masters. 

These periods, in detail, form respectively the subjects 
of the Four Parts into which this book is divided. 



TABLES. 

Table I.— English Literature. 

(GENERAL TABLE OF THE FOUR PERIODS.) 

I. — The Formation of the Language, 670-1400. 
I. Before the Norman Conquest. 



THE BRITONS (CELTS). 


THE ENGLISH. 


Early Bards, about 500-600. 
Llynarch Hen. 
Taleisin. 
Anewrin. 
Merlin. 


a. The Northumbrian Writers, 670-800. 

Caedmon. 

Bede. 

Cynewulf. 

b. The Revival of Letters in Wessex, 880- 

1066. 
King Alfred, 840-901. 
Dunstan. 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, revised cir. 850-860. 
(See Table II, ''Early English. '0 



2. After the Norman Conquest (1066-1400). 



BRITONS (OR WELSH). 



Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to 
death of Stephen, 1154. 

Popular Songs and Ballads. 
" Robin Hood" Ballads. 
; l The Owl and the Night- 
ingale." 



ANGLO-NORMAN. 



Song of Roland." 

Romance of King Alex- 
ander." 

The Romance of Sir Tris- 
trem," 1270 (?). 



Mabinogion.— Entrance of Celtic Literature into English. 
Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of Britain, 1147. 
Walter Map continues Arthurian Legends, 12th century. 
Layamon's Brut, 1205. 

Geoffrey Chaucer, and Union of English and Norman. 
(See Table III, " Chaucer's Century.") 



U. — The Period of Italian Influence, 1400- 1660. 

1. The Revival of Learning. 

a. In Education. 

b. In Literature. 

Wyatt and Surrey. (See Table IV, "Revival of Learning.") 
The Elizabethan Period, j (See Tables V and VI, " Rise of the 
Shakespeare. j Drama," and "Elizabethan Period.") 

2. The Expression of Reformation in Literature. 

Puritanism. ) 

Milton. HSee Table VII, ° Puritan England.") 
Bunyan. ) 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

III. — The Period of French Influence, 1660-cir. 1750. 

1. Restoration to Death of Dryden, 1 660-1 700. 

2. The Augustan Age (Critical School). 

Pope, Addison, Steele. (See Table VIII.) 

IV. — The Modern English Period, 1750. 

1. The Reaction Against the Critical School (or Augustan Age). 

a. The New Sympathy with Nature. 

Ramsey's Gentle Shepherd, 1725. 

b. The New Sympathy with Man ; Rise of Modern Democracy. 

c. German Influence in Coleridge and Carlyle. (See Table VIII, 

" Rise of the Modern Literature," and Table IX," Victorian Age.") 

2. Recent Writers, 1830. 

Carlyle. 

Tennyson. 

Browning. 

(See Table IX, Victorian Age.") 



PART I. 



PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

(670 to 1400.) 



PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

670 to 1400. 



Cbapter fl. 

Race, Literature, and Language Before Chaucer. 

It is not until the fourteenth century that the language 
of English literature becomes so like the English of to* 
day that we can understand it without special study. 
Before that time, while England had no national speech, 
we find many books written in Latin, some in Norman- 
French, and others in different varieties of an English 
which seems to us almost as strange as a foreign tongue. 
But while the literature of our modern English language 
may be said to begin in the comparatively modern 
English of some of the great writers of the fourteenth 
century, the literature of England stretches back for six 
hundred years before that time. Geoffrey Chaucer, who 
lived in the latter half of the fourteenth century, may be 
thought of as beginning this more modern period. The 
five centuries since his birth are bright with clusters of 
great writers, and at first may seem to us to contain all 
that is worth study in the literature of England. But if 
we look more closely, we see that England's great literary 
production during the latter period is directly con- 
nected with her slow centuries of preparation in the 
earlier; that her mental life, and the literature which is 
its most direct expression, have a continuous growth 
and history for more than twelve hundred years. We 
cannot now do more than indicate some main features 



12 PERIOD OF PREPARATION*. 

of this preparatory period. Looking at it in outline, we 
see that the way was prepared for the later literature, 

i . By the making of the Race. 

The modern English people, whose national character 
English Literature interprets and expresses, was formed 
during this time by the mixture of different race ele- 
ments. 

2. By the Literature before the Norman Conquest. 

3. By the Norman Conquest, with its far-reaching effects 
on race, literature, and language. 

4. By the making of the Language out of the combina- 
tion of different tongues. 

THE MAKING OF THE RACE. 

The English settlers of Britain were Low-German 

tribes, resembling in language, and to some extent in 

character, their neighbors the Frisians, the modern Dutch, 

to whom they were closely related by blood. 

The English. J J J 

1 wo of the three English tribes came from 
what are now the Schleswig-Holstein provinces of North- 
ern Germany, the country about the mouth of the river 
Elbe which lies to the north of Holland. The third tribe, 
the Jutes, held that peninsula yet farther northward 
which is now part of Denmark. This early home of the 
English, with its harshness, gloom, and privations, was a 
land to breed men. Fierce storms beat down upon it, 
and often in the spring and autumn the sea swept over 
its sunken, muddy coasts, flooding it far inland. Dismal 
curtains of fog settled over it ; its miles of tangled forests 
were soaked and dripping with frequent rains. The other 
home of the English was the sea. The eldest son suc- 
ceeded to his father's land ; as soon as the younger sons 
grew old enough they took to the war-ships to win fame 
and plunder by slaughter and pillage. Their high-prowed 
galleys were a menace and a terror to the richer coast 



THE MAKING OF THE RACE. 13 

settlements far southward, and prayers were regularly 
offered in some churches for a deliverance from their 
fury. Swift in pursuit, they were swift also in flight. 
One of their poets contrasts life on their wintry waters 
with the joy of home : 

" Knows not he who finds happiest 

Home upon earth, 

How I lived through long Winter 

In labor and care, 

On the icy-cold ocean 

An exile from joy. 

Cut off from dear kindred, 

Encompassed with ice ; 

Hail flew in hard showers, 

And nothing I heard 

But the wrath of the waters, 

The icy-cold way ; 

At times the swan's song ; 
• In the scream of the gannet 

I sought for my joy ; 

In the moan of the sea-whelp 

For laughter of men ; 

In the song of the sea-mew 

For drinking of mead." * 

These early English were fair-haired, blue-eyed men, 
big-boned and muscular, with the fearlessness and 
audacity of the hero, and the rapacity and cruelty of the 
savage. A young race with stores of unwasted vigor; 
with an immense, if brutal, energy ; with an enormous 
and unspent capacity for life, for feeling, for thought, 
for action. Nor were they mere barbarians. They had 
that instinct for law and freedom which in the coming 
generations was to build Parliaments and create Re- 
publics ; they had.no less that splendid seriousness, that 
reverence for life and death, that profoundly religious 

* " The Sea-farer." Morley's trans. " Eng. Writers," vol. ii. p. 21, 
The entire poem may be read with advantage. 



14 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

spirit which animates and inspires the greatest produc- 
tions of English literature. In spite of all their delight 
in the joy of battle, in spite of their feasting and drunken 
revelry, there runs through their poetry the persistent 
undertone of a settled melancholy. They look death 
steadily in the face as "the necessary end"; * they are 
continually impressed by the sense of the power of Fate, 
against which the weapons of the warrior are idle. 

" One shall sharp hunger slay ; 
One shall the storms beat down ; 
One shall be destroyed by darts ; 
One die in war ; 
One shall live losing 
The light of his eyes, 
Feel blindly with fingers ; 
And one, lame of foot, 
With sinew-wound wearily 
Wasteth away, 
Musing and mourning, 
With death in his mind." t 

In another poem we are forced to descend into the 
very grave and watch the dust return to dust. \ 

Yet this haunting sense of the shortness of life did not 
produce in the early English the determination to enjoy 
to-day. Living in the rush of battle and tempest, it 
rather stimulated them to quit themselves as heroes. 
The English conscience speaks in such lines as these : 

" This is best laud from the living 
In last words spoken about him : — 
He Worked ere he went his way, 
When on earth, against wiles of the foe, 
With brave deeds overcoming the devil." § 

* " Julius Caesar," act ii. sc. 2. 

\ " The Fortunes of Man." Morley's trans." Eng. Writers," vol. ii. p. 33. 
\ "The Grave," a characteristic poem. See Longfellow's trans, in 
" Poets and Poetry of Europe." 
§ "The Sea-farer," supra. 



THE MAKING OF THE RACE. 15 

In these early English we recognize those great traits 
of mind and character which have continued to animate 
the race ; traits which in the centuries to come were to 
take shape in the deeds of heroes and in the songs of 
poets. In these half-savage pirate tribes, with their 
deep northern melancholy, is the germ of that masterful 
and aggressive nation which was to put a girdle of 
English round the world ; of their blood are the sea- 
men who chased the towering galleons of the Spanish 
Armada, the six hundred who charged to death at Bala- 
clava, or those other English, our own forefathers, who 
declared and maintained their inheritance of freedom. 
The spirit of this older England, enriched by time, is 
alive, too, in the words of Shakespeare, of Milton, and 
of Browning, as it is in the deeds of Raleigh, of Chatham, 
and of Gordon. 

When the English began to settle in Britain, about the 
middle of the fifth century, the island was occupied by 
tribes of a people called Celts. In early times 

1 • \ i\ r ttt t^ The Celts. 

this race held a great part of Western Eu- 
rope as well as the British Isles, until conquered or pushed 
aside by the Teutonic races, the group to which the Eng- 
lish belong. Scotland and Ireland were occupied by one 
great division of the Celts, the Gaels, and what is now Eng- 
land by an other, the Cymri, or, as we commonly call 
them, the Britons. The Celts were a very different race 
from the Teutons, and the Britons were as thoroughly Cel- 
tic in their disposition, as the English were Teutonic. For 
more than fourteen hundred years Celt and Teuton have 
dwelt together in England; for while the Britons were 
driven westward by the English, they were far from 
being exterminated, and in certain sections these two 
races have blended into one. This mixture of the races 
has been greatest in the North and West, for instance, 
in such counties as Devon, Somerset, Warwick, and 



1 6 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

Cumberland. From the mixed race thus formed, a 
race which combined the genius of two dissimilar and 
gifted peoples, many of the greatest poets of Eng- 
land have sprung. Indeed it may be truly said, that 
English Literature is the expression and outcome, 
not of the English race and character alone, but of that 
character modified and enriched by the Celt. Not only 
has the Celtic blood thus mingled with the English : 
Celtic poetry and legend have furnished subject and in- 
spiration to English writers down to our own day. It is, 
therefore, important for us to gain some notion of the 
Celtic as well as of the early English spirit, for in the 
literature of England we recognize the presence of both. 
The Britons, like the English, were a huge, powerful 
race; they had fierce gray or bluish eyes, and light or 
reddish hair. Wild as they seemed before they lost 
their native vigor under the Roman rule, 

The Britons. . 

they had ! a natural vein of poetry and 
sentiment more pathetic and delicate than the somewhat 
prosaic and stolid English. They were quick-witted, un- 
stable, lacking the English capacity for dogged and per- 
sistent effort, easily depressed and easily exalted, quickly 
sensitive to romance, to beauty, to sadness. Beside the 
stern and massive literature of the early English, with its 
dark background of storm and forest, with its resolution 
and its fatalism, with the icy solitude of its northern 
ocean, stands that of the Celt, bright as fairy-land with 
gorgeous colors and the gleam of gold and precious 
stones, astir with the quick play of fancy, enlivened by 
an un-English vivacity and humor, and touched by an 
exquisite pathos. Here is the description from one of 
the Celtic Romances of a young knight going out to 
seek his fortune : 

" And the youth pricked forth upon a steed with head dap- 
pled gray, of four winters old, firm of limb, with shell-formed 



THE MAKING OF THE RACE. 17 

hoofs, having a bridle of linked gold on his head, and on him 
a saddle of costly gold. And in the youth's hand were two 
spears of silver, sharp, well-tempered, headed with steel, three 
ells in length, of an edge to wound the wind and cause blood 
to flow, and swifter than the fall of the dew-drop from the 
blade of reed-grass upon the earth when the dew of June is at 
the heaviest. A gold-hilted sword was upon his thigh, the 
blade of which was of gold, bearing a cross of inlaid gold of 
the hue of the lightning of heaven ; his war horn was of ivory. 
Before him were two brindled, white-breasted greyhounds, 
having strong collars of rubies about their necks, reaching 
from the shoulder to the ear. And the one that was on the 
left side bounded across to the right side, and the one on the 
right to the left, and like two sea-swallows sported round him. 

And the blade of grass bent not beneath him, so light was his 
step as he journeyed toward the gate of Arthur's palace." 

The familiar figure of the young man going forth to 
conquer the world in the strength of his youth is here 
emblazoned with all the glowing colors, the delicate fancy 
of the Celtic genius. 

Or take the following as an illustration of the Celtic 
sentiment and Celtic love of nature : 

" The maiden was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, 
and about her neck was a collar of ruddy gold, on which were 
precious emeralds and rubies. More yellow was her head than 
the flower of the broom, and her skin was whiter than the foam 
of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers than 
the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the 
meadow-fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance 
of the three mewed falcon, was not brighter than hers. 

" Whoso beheld her was filled with her love ; four white 
trefoils sprung up where'er she trod." 

And finally, as an example of the Celtic humor, add the 
picture of another maiden as a study of the grotesque : 



1 8 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

"And thereupon they saw a black curly-headed maiden enter, 
riding upon a yellow mule, with jagged thongs in her hand to 
urge it on ; and having a rough and hideous aspect. Blacker 
were her face and her hands than the blackest iron covered 
with pitch ; and her hue was not more frightful than her form. 
High cheeks had she and a face lengthened downward and a 
short nose with distended nostrils. And one eye was of a 
piercing mottled gray, and the other was black as jet deep sunk 
in her head. And her teeth were long and yellow, more yellow 
were they than the flower of the broom . . . and her figure was 
very thin and spare except her feet, which were of huge size."* 

While the early English had certain great traits of 
character which were lacking in the Celt — the genius 
for governing, steadfastness, earnestness — the Celt was 
strong where the English were deficient. The mingling 
of these races, therefore, during the long period before 
the outburst of literature in the fourteenth century, was 
an important element in the unconscious preparation for 
the latter time. We can better understand this by 
remembering .that William Shakespeare, the greatest 
genius of the modern world, stands as the highest example 
of this union of Celt and Teuton. " It is not without 
significance that the highest type of the race, the one 
Englishman who has combined in the largest measure 
the mobility and fancy of the Celt with the depth and 
energy of the Teutonic temper, was born on the old Welsh 
and English border-land in the forest of Arden/'f 

LITERATURE BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

To this preparation by the making of the race must 
be added the education which came to the 

Christianity. ..""-,-.,, , . , , 

heathen English through contact with the 
religion and learning of Christian Europe. Christianity 

* " Story of Pereder," Mabinogion 114, Guest's ed. 
fj. R. Green, quoted in Art. on "Shakespeare," Encycl. Brit., 9th 
edition, which consult on this subject. 



LITERATURE BEFORE THE NORM AX CONQUEST. 19 

came as a new and mighty force to the serious-minded 
and naturally religious English ; to it the beginning of 
English literature in England is directly due. Intro- 
duced in the north by St. Columba, and in the south 
by St. Augustine, it not only built churches, but 
founded great monastic schools, through which the 
culture of Italy was brought to Englishmen. It is 
within the walls of a monastery, the Abbey of Whitby, 
on the Yorkshire coast, that we find the beginning of 
English poetry. There Cacdmon, the herdsman, sings 
his song of the creation, a paraphrase of the book of 
Genesis and other parts of the Bible. In form, his 
rude verse resembles that chanted for centuries by the 
gleeman, or harper, in the old home of his race; but it 
is Christianity that inspires him, and puts a new song in 
his mouth. It is the monastery at Jarrow, in Northum- 
bria, that gives England her first great prose writer, 
Bceda, or Bede, the teacher and monk-scholar (673-735). 
During- Bede's lifetime the scholarship of T ... 

& * Literary G r eat- 

Northumbria was superior to that of any na- nes ^ . of North- 

r J umbria, 670 to 

tion of Western Europe. We gain an idea of about 8o °- 
the intellectual power of the English by remembering 
that, about a century before Bede and Caedmon, North- 
umbria was an illiterate and heathen kingdom. 

The literary greatness of Northumbria was interrupted 
by repeated invasions of the Danes, barbarous and 
heathen tribes, who at last gained possession of the 
North of England, underthe treaty of Wed- Revival ot 
more, 879. But learning, thus driven from slut" ™l lev ai! 
the North, was fostered in the South by the re ' °~ 901, 
energy and enthusiasm of Alfred the Great (880-901), 
who established schools, improved the education of the 
clergy, made his court a center of learning, and even 
himself translated from the monkish Latin into English 
for the benefit of his people, Bede's History of the Eng- 
lish Church, and other works. 



20 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

After the death of Alfred, the country was continually 
worried by the Danes ; learning declined, and there were 
but few scholars of note in England from the beginning 
of the tenth century to the Norman Conquest. 

In the five centuries between the first settlement of 
the English and this great event, we thus see the mind 
of the nation refined and developed by the influence of 
Christianity, and by the Latin learning and the older 
civilization of Southern Europe, which enter through 
the monastic schools. 

THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

The conquest of England by the Normans, in 1066, 
brought a new and powerful influence into English life 
and literature. The Normans, or Northmen, were 
originally a mixed horde of piratical adventurers from 
Scandinavia and Denmark, who had won for themselves 
a country in the North of France. Enterprising, quick- 
witted, open to new ideas, this race of born rulers did 
more than seize upon some of the fairest lands of South- 
ern Europe ; wherever it went, it appropriated much that 
was best in the civilization of those it subdued. The 
fur-clad and half-savage Northmen, whose black, square- 
sailed ships crowded up the Seine after .Rollo, were 
heathen freebooters. The Normans who conquered 
England a century and a half later, were the most 
courtly, cultured, art-loving, and capable race in Europe. 
In origin, they were Teutonic, like the English ; yet so 
completely had they adopted and, in some respects, im- 
proved the civilization of the Gaul and the Roman, that 
scarcely an outward trace of their origin remained. 
After establishing themselves in Normandy, they had 
rapidly acquired the corrupt Latin of the region, and trans- 
formed it into a literary language. " They found it a 
barbarous jargon, they fixed it in writing, and they em- 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 21 

ployed it in legislation, in poetry, in romance.* They 
became Christians, and eagerly absorbed the learning 
which the Church brought with it, encouraging such 
Italian scholars as Anselm and Lanfranc to settle among 
them. They built splendid cathedrals and castles ; they 
were foremost in instituting chivalry. Their poets, or 
trouveres y chanted long knightly songs of battle, love, 
and heroism, — Chansons de Gestes,\ as they are called, — 
that, in style and spirit, were not Scandinavian, but 
French and Southern. Yet the followers of William the 
Conqueror were far from being pure Teutons, even in 
race. In France the invading Northmen had intermar- 
ried with the native population, which was largely Celtic, 
and the two races mixed, as the. English and Celt did in 
parts of England.^ " The indomitable vigor of the Scan- 
dinavian, joined to the buoyant vivacity of the Gaul, 
produced the conquering and ruling race of Europe. "§ 
With William, too, was a motley following of adventurers 
from many parts of France, so that, through the Conquest, 
the Celtic blood, this time mixed with that of other races, 
mingled a second time]\vith that of the English. But more 
important than the strain of Celtic blood that thus came 
with the Norman, is the fact that the civilization brought 
in by them was French and Latin, rather than that of 
the Teutonic North. The great scholars who came into 
England after the Conquest always wrote in Latin, while 
the tronvcre wandered from castle to castle, singing the 
chanson of Norman chivalry in the Norman-French of the 

* Macaulay's " History of England," vol. i. pp. 21-22. 

\ " Chansons Je Gestes, songs of families, as the term literally means, are 
poems describing the history and achievements of the great men of France 
in early times. Geste has three senses — (1) The deeds (gesta) of a hero ; 
(2) the poem illustrating those deeds ; (3) the family of the hero, and the 
set of poems celebrating it." — Saintsbury's " Primer of French Lit.," p. 3. 

% P. 15 supra. 

§ Freeman's " Norman Conquest," vol. i. p. 170. 



22 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

conquering race. The Song of Roland, the famous Pala- 
din of Charlemagne, was sung by a Norman minstrel on 
the battlefield of Hastings, and the language of the Nor- 
man court became blended with the English of the peo- 
ple. Besides this, many French romances were translated 
into English, bringing home to the popular imagination 
a new store of poetic fancies, the flavor of a foreign chiv- 
alry. The great results of this establishing of a new litera- 
ture in England will be better seen when we come to study 
Chaucer ; before this, we must glance at the effect of the 
Conquest on the making of the language. 

THE MAKING OF THE LANGUAGE. 

After the Conquest, French was the language of the 

court and of the ruling classes in England, and, with a 

few exceptions, it became that of literature. 

Use of French. . 

English was despised by the polished Nor- 
man as the barbarous tongue of a conquered people. 
The mass of English still used it ; but as it almost 
ceased to be a written or literary language, many 
words not used in ordinary speech were lost from 
its vocabulary. For a time, Norman-French and Eng- 
lish in its various dialects continued in use side 
by side as distinct languages, but it cannot have been 
very long before the Normans, who had permanently 
settled in England, began to learn the native speech. 
The two races drew closer together, and, by the loss of 
Normandy in 1204, the connection with a foreign and 
French speaking power was broken. Parisian French 
had indeed come with the Plantagenet kings ; during the 
reigns of John (1199-1216) and Henry III. (1216-1272) it 
was the fashion at court, and for some time later it con- 
tinued to be the language of state documents, of society, 
education, and the courts of law. Yet, in spite of this, 
English began to be more generally employed by the 



THE MAKING OF THE LANGUAGE. 23 

French speaking people outside of court circles. A writer 
of the latter part of the thirteenth century declares, " For 
unless a man knows French people regard him little; but 
the low men hold to English and to their own speech 
still."* 

By the fourteenth century this stubborn " holding to 
English " had made the triumph of that language cer- 
tain. The Hundred Years' War against Triumph of 
France, begun in Edward III.'s reign (1327 En e lish - 
-1377), may have helped to bring French into disfavor, 
and hastened, but not caused, the more general use of 
English. By 1339, English instead of French was em- 
ployed in nearly all the schools as the medium of instruc- 
tion. In 1362, Parliament passed an act providing that 
the pleadings in the law courts should henceforth be 
in English " because the laws, customs, and statutes of 
this realm, for that they be pleaded, showed, and judged 
in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the 
said realm." 

But while French was being thus given up, there was 
as yet no one national English established and under- 
stood throughout the whole of England. One kind of 
English was spoken in the North, another in the middle 
districts, and a third in the South ; and even Midland 
these three forms were split up into further English, 
dialects. These three dialects are commonly known 
as the Northern, Midland, and Southern English. Dur- 
ing the latter part of the fourteenth century the East 
Midland English, or that spoken in and about London, 
which was in the Eastern part of the Midland district, 
asserted itself above the confusion, and gradually be- 
came accepted as the national speech. Midland English 
had an importance as the language of Oxford and 
Cambridge, as well as that of the capital and the court, 

* Robert of Gloucester's " Rhyming Chronicle" (1272). 



24 PERIOD OF PREPARA TION. 

but its supremacy was rather due to its being made the 
language of literature. The language of Wyclif's trans- 
lation of the Bible (1380), a variety of this Midland 
form, is plainly the parent of the noble Bible-English of 
our later versions. The poet John Gower (1 330-1408) 
gave up the use of French and Latin to write in the 
King s or Court English, and, more than all, it was in 
this same East Midland English of the court that Geof- 
frey Chaucer wrote the poems which became so widely 
read. These' works gave to East Midland English a su- 
premacy which it never lost. 

Now this East Midland dialect was not a pure English. 
When during the early half of the fourteenth century 
the use of French began to be generally given up in 

infusion of f avor °f English, those who began to speak 
French. English naturally retained and introduced 

into it a large number of French words. This infusion of 
French was greatest in the East Midland dialect, because 
London had a larger foreign population, and had long 
been the seat of a French speaking court. A mixed tongue 
was thus formed there, in its foundations of grammar and 
construction substantially English, in its vocabulary nearly 
one-half French. By the establishment of this special 
variety of English, the influence of the Norman Conquest 
on language was made lasting, and the effect of the 
French rule in England remains deeply stamped on the 
English we speak and write to-day. Castle, chivalry, 
royal, robe, coronation, debonair, courtesy, such stately 
words, our homelier English owes to the French and 
Latin. Just as the English race was improved during 
the preparatory period by its mixture first with the 
Celt, and then with the partially Celtic followers of 
the Conqueror, so, by its mixture with French, the Eng- 
lish language was made more rich and flexible. 

Many elements had thus combined in this composite 



TABLE AXD REFERENCES. 



25 



England, and the way was made clear for a great poet 
who could lay the foundations of a truly national litera- 
ture and language. That poet was Geoffrey Chaucer. 

Table II. — Early English Literature. 

(CAEDMON TO NORMAN CONQUEST.) 





LITERATURE. 


HISTORICAL EVENTS. 


Northumbrian 


Caedmon. 


Conversion of Edwin, 


School of 
Writers. 


" Paraphrases of Genesis ) 6 68o 
and Exodus. ) ' 


King of Northum- 
bria, to Christian- 




Bede, 673-735. 


ity, 627. 




" Ecclesiastical History of England." 






Anonymous. 






" Battle of Finnesburg," written 






about 700. 






Cynewulf, about 720. 


The Danes first land 




" Vision of the Cross," " Christ's De- 


in England, 787. 




scent into Hell," "Guthlac." 


They conquer 




Alcuin, about 735-S00. 


Northumbria, 867. 




" Lives of Various Saints," Poems, 






Hymns. 




School of Wes- 


Anglo-Saxon Chronicle began to be 


Wessex rises into 


sex. 


written as a history. 


power under Eg- 




Aldhelm, 656-709. 


bert, 800, and in- 




" Poetical Enigmas." 


creases under Al- 




Alfred, 849-901. 


fred, King of the 




Translation of Bede's History, and 


South of England, 




Boethius' "Consolations of Philos- 


871. Treaty with 




ophy." 


the Danes, called 




Asser. 


Peace of Wedmore, 




" Life of Alfred." 


S79. 



GENERAL NOTES AND REFERENCES. 

As the following works maybe used with advantage through- 
out the entire course, they will not be repeated in other tables: 

1. History. — Green's "History of the English People " will 
be found invaluable. Teachers are recommended to use this 
book freely, and to read, with the class, passages relating to lit- 
erature or to social conditions. Knight's " Pictorial History 
of England "; Craik and Macfarlane's " History of England." 

2. Literature. — Stopford Brooke's " Primer of English Lit- 
erature"; Taine's "English Literature " is a classic, and is 
brilliant and suggestive; it should be used, however, with due 



26 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

allowance for its author's peculiar theories, and for critical 
shortcomings. Howitt's " Homes and Haunts of the Most 
Eminent British Poets/' Hutton's "Literary Landmarks of 
London," Hare's "Walks About London." For selections, 
Ward's " English Poets," Cook's " Selections from English 
Prose," Chambers's " Cyclopedia of English Literature." For 
reference, Ryland's " Chronological Outlines of English Litera- 
ture," Phillips's " Popular Manual of English Literature," 
Adams's " Dictionary of English Literature," Brewer's 
" Readers' Handbook," Brewer's " Dictionary of Phrase and 
Fable," Ploetz's " Epitome of Universal History." 

NOTES AND REFERENCES. — CHAPTER I. 

History. — Green's " Making of England," Green's " Con- 
quest of England." On extent of admixture of English and 
Celt, a question much discussed, consult Matthew Arnold's 
" Celtic Literature," Huxley's article on " Some Fixed Points 
in British Ethnology," in "*' Critiques and Addresses," p. 177 ; 
Isaac Taylor's " Words and Places"; Henry Morley's article 
on " The Celtic Element in English Literature " in " Clement 
Marot and Other Essays." 

Literature. — For good collection of Anglo-Saxon poems to 
use in class, see translations in Longfellow's " Poets and Poetry 
of Europe "; see also Morley's "English Writers," vols, i., ii., 
and Conybeare's " Illustrations of A.-S. Literature." For 
Beowulf : " The Deeds of Beowulf," John Earle, Claren- 
don Press (prose translation), and "Beowulf" metrical line for 
line translation, by J. M. Garnett (Ginn & Co.). For Caed- 
mon, Thorpe's " Metrical Paraphrase " gives translation with 
text. Extracts from Celtic poetry in Arnold, supra, and Mor- 
ley's " English Writers "; see also Guest's translation of " Mab- 
inogion," and Lanier's "Boy's Mabinogion." Stories from the 
latter maybe read with class. 

Histories of Literature, and Criticism. — Earle's "A.-S. Litera- 
ture," Azarias's " Development of Literature, Old English 
Period," Ten Brinck's "Early English Literature." "The 
Englishman and the Scandinavian," by Frederic Metcalf, com- 
pares the Early English and Norse Literatures. 



CHAUCER'S CENTURY. 27 

Cbapter 11. 

Geoffrey Chaucer. 1340 (?) to 1400. 
CHAUCER'S CENTURY. 

To enter into the poetry of Chaucer and to understand 
how vast an influence he had on the development of our 
language and literature, we must try to imagine ourselves 
back in his time. Chaucer lived in a century full of in- 
terest and change, when England, along with the rest of 
Europe, was growing impatient of the cramped life and 
restricted thought of the Middle Ages, and was throb- 
bing with that new life which was to find expression in 
the Renaissance. The old mediaeval world yet remained, 
but everywhere in the midst of its most characteristic in- 
stitutions we can see the beginning of the new order 
destined to take its place. 

Thus chivalry, by which in the Middle Ages the 
mere barbarian fighter of earlier times became the knight, 
was at the height of its splendor. Our first 

... . . 1 1 • 1 • Chivalry. 

great poet lived and breathed in the very air 
of knightly romance ; he knew in his youth the dazzling 
and luxurious court of the third Edward, a king who de- 
lighted in the display of tournaments and who founded 
the Order of the Garter. As we read of Sir John Chandos 
and of Bertrand du Guesclin in Froissart's Chronicles 
of the Hundred Years War* this brilliant and lavish 
reign seems crowded with knightly feats. Yet mediae- 
val as this world of Chaucer seems to us, as we imagine 
the gray turrets of its moated castles, the streaming 
plumes, the shining armor, and all the picturesque 
pageantry of its real or mimic war, agencies were at work 
undermining the whole fabric of its chivalry. Gun- 

* " The Hundred Years' War " (1338-1453), a war between France and 
England. 



28 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

powder, first used in Europe at the battle of Crecy in 1346, 
was destined to revolutionize the mode of warfare, and 
to help make castle and armor things of the past. 

In England new forces were active in the mass of the 

people, which threatened to change the whole order of 

society. In 1349, England was desolated by a loathsome 

and deadly plague, the Black Death, through 

Socialism. . . , . , . r . . . 

which about half the entire population 
miserably perished. The farms were untilled, the crops 
scanty, and famine followed pestilence. The country 
was filled with vagrants driven by idleness and starvation 
to beggary or theft. The organization of labor was un- 
settled, and iron laws were passed which made matters 
worse. Then came bitter denunciations and riotous up- 
risings against all those class distinctions which had been 
accepted almost as part of the divinely arranged order. 
John Ball, the " mad priest of Kent," thundered against 
those who " are clothed in rich stuffs, ornamented with 
ermine, who dwell in fine houses while we must brave 
the wind and rain in our labors in the fields." Our 
dream of fourteenth century chivalry is thus broken by 
the stormy complaint of the poor, the prelude of modern 
democracy. 

In religion, too, the century is full of signs of a coming 
change. The Church no longer inspired that devotion 

which characterized the days of the earlier 

The Church. / 

crusader. In 1305 the Pope removed from 
Rome to Avignon, and the reverence and divinity which 
had hedged him about as the declared " Vicar of Christ 
on Earth " was greatly lessened when men saw him the 
creature of the growing power of France. The multiply- 
ing corruptions in the Church itself, the sordidness and 
lack of spirituality in its clergy, moved earnest men to 
scorn and satire. In all this we see signs of the coming 
Reformation. 



CHAUCER'S CENTURY. 29 

The old scholastic learning of the Middle Ages yet 
lingered in Chaucer's England. The Oxford Clerk, in The 
Canterbury Tales, delights in Aristotle, an The New 
author of first importance in the old educa- earning, 
tion of the monastic schools. Yet a New Learning has 
already arisen in Italy, and in the work of Chaucer him- 
self has entered English literature. Twenty years 
before the birth of Chaucer, Dante — the first supremely 
great poet since the classic writers — had died in exile in 
Ravenna, leaving for all time the expression of the soul 
of mediaeval Christendom in the "Divine Comedy." When 
Chaucer was a year old, Petrarch, the sonneteer of Laura, 
a poet and scholar who was a great leader in the new 
way of feeling and thinking, was crowned with laurel at 
Rome. Boccaccio was pouring out, in the prose tales of 
his Decamerone, the world's new delight in the beauty 
and good things of this life. 

This threefold change, which marked the breaking up 
of the mediaeval and the beginning of the modern world, 
expressed itself in England in the works of three great 
writers. The Social movement found its mouthpiece in 
WILLIAM LANGLAND, i 332-1400 ; the new Religious spirit 
in Wyclif, while the New Learning of Italy enters into 
the verse of GEOFFREY CHAUCER (cir. 1 340-1400). 

The well-nigh hopeless cry of the people against 
the social evils and a corrupt church goes up in the 
Vision of Piers the P/ozvman, of Langland. The poet 
falls asleep and sees in his vision the world 
— his distracted English world — as a " fair Piers the prow- 
field full of folk." There are plowmen, the 
fruit of whose toil the gluttons waste, men in rich apparel, 
chafferers, lawyers who will not open their mouths except 
for gold, pardoners from Rome, who traffic with the 
people for pardons, and divide with the parish priest the 
silver of the poor. The world makes a pilgrimage to seek 



3° PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

Truth, and finds a guide in Piers, a plowman, at work 
in the fields. He bids them wait until he has finished 
his half-acre, then he will lead them. " The equality of 
all men before God, the gospel of labor — these are the 
two great doctrines found in this poem."* 

In religion John Wyclif, by his fearless attack on the ill- 
gotten wealth and corruptions of the church, by certain 
of his religious doctrines, and by his translation of the 
Bible (1380), stands as the greatest mouth- 

John Wyclif. . , , . . , , , , , r 

piece or the new spirit and the herald of 
the Reformation. Wyclif, too, by giving up the Latin 
of the mediaeval schoolmen, and speaking directly to the 
people in homely English, shows us that learning was 
ceasing to be the exclusive possession of priest and clerk. 
Finally, the new learning of Italy colors the verse of 
Chaucer, and mingles with its mediaeval hues. In his 
work, more than in that of any other writer, 

Chaucer. J ' 

this crowded fourteenth century survives 
for us ; there, indeed, its men and women breathe and 
act before us* — alive veritably to-day beyond the power 
of five centuries of time and change. 

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.— 1340 (?)-i400. 

Our knowledge of Chaucer's life is meagre and frag- 
mentary ; many points are uncertain, and much left to 
conjecture. Yet Chaucer is real to us through his books, 
and the little we do know of his life is remarkably signi- 
ficant of its general character. 

Geoffrey Chaucer, the son of John Chaucer, a wine mer- 
chant on Thames Street, was born in London abotit 1340. 
As a boy he learned something of the court, for he was 
page in the household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the 
second son of Edward III. As a youth, he knew some- 
thing of war and camps, for he took part in a campaign 

* Green's " History of English People," vol. i. p. 442. 






GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 3 1 



in France in 1359, probably as an esquire, was taken 
prisoner and ransomed. Attached to the court, he was 
sent on diplomatic missions to various foreign countries. 
In 1372, he went to Genoa to arrange a commercial treaty, 
and remained in Italy about a year. He was there 
brought directly under the influence of that New Learning 
which was to re-create the mind of Europe. Here, too, 
he probably met Petrarch, its greatest living represen- 
tative. Two years later he was given a position in the 
Custom House at London. In 1366 he was returned to 
Parliament as Knight of the Shire of Kent, but in the 
same year lost his place as Controller of the Customs, in 
the absence of his patron John of Gaunt — the " time- 
honored Lancaster " of Shakespeare's Richard II. For 
awhile he knew poverty, bearing it with characteristic 
good humor. On the accession (1399) of Henry IV., 
the son of his former patron, his fortunes again improved ; 
he was granted an annuity of forty marks, but died on 
the 25th of the October following, closing the eyes, which 
had seen so much, in his quiet home at Westminster, 
while the dawn grows over Europe and the new century 
is born. 

Little as we know of Chaucer, we can see at how many 
points he touched the varied and brilliant life of his 
time, knowing it not merely as an onlooker, but as a 
practical man of affairs, himself an actor in Man of the 
its restless activities. He was a man of world - 
the world, but one who added to the quick eye and 
retentive mind the poet's tenderness and sympathy with 
suffering, the philosopher's large-minded toleration of 
human follies and mistakes. And Chaucer, like Shake- 
speare, learned not only from life but from 

11 tt 11 r ,- , Student. 

books. He would return from his work at 

the Custom House to read until his eyes were " dazed 

and dull." We may agree with Lowell that in Chaucer's 



3 2 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

description of the Oxford Clerk, the poet writes out of 
the fullness of a personal sympathy. 

" For he hadde geten him yit no benefice. 
Ne was so worldly for to have orifice. 
For him was levere have at his beddes heede 
Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reede. 
Of Aristotle and his philosophic 
Then robes riche. or fithele or gay sawtrie." 

Chaucer the poet had so absorbed the tales of trouvere 
and Italian, as to make them live anew, in his verse, on 
English soil. Chaucer the student translated Boethius's 
Consolations of Philosophy and wrote a scientific treatise 
on the astrolabe.* 

Lover of men and lover of books, Chaucer 

Lover of nature. . 111 r r 1 1 

is no less the lover of nature, for her alone 
delighting to leave his studies. 

'•And as for me. though that I kon but lytee. 
On bokes for to rede I me delvte. 
And to hem yive I feyth and ful credence 
And in myn herte have hem in reverence 
So hertely. that ther is game noon, 
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, 
But yt be seldom on the holy day, 
Save, certeynly, when that the moneth of May 
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge 
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge, 
Farewel my bokc, and my devocioun ! " t 

To approach in reverent imagination the reserve of 
tenderness, the sacred depths in the rare nature of this 
old poet, who takes what life sends "in buxomnesse,"J 
who makes no display of what he is and feels, we must 
think of him as he shows himself in one of his poems, 

* "The oldest work in England now known to exist on any branch of 
science." — Craik's " English Literature," vol. i. p. 367. 
f Prologue to " Legend of Good Women." 
% See " Good Counseil," page 59 infra. 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER. S3 

going out alone into the meadows in the stillness of 
early morning and falling on his knees to greet the 
daisy. 

In Chaucer's poems we see the expression of this full 
life, that knew and loved men, books, and nature ; but 
above all, there shines through them the element of that 
highest achievement — personal greatness of character. 
He-is truthful, putting down honestly and naturally 
what he sees ; he can enjoy life, almost with the frank 
delight of a child, capable of laughter without malice ; 
and, boisterous or coarse as he may sometimes seem, he 
is at heart surpassingly gentle and compassionate. The 
innocence and sufferings of women move him deeply. 
He has shown us woman's faith and purity in Constance, 
her love and patience in Griselda.* In both of these 
beautiful stories the quiet acceptance of adversity is as- 
sociated with children, and the ideal woman is shown, 
not only in her wifehood, but in her motherhood. 
Finally, in his grasp of human life and in his handling 
of a story, Chaucer shows a dramatic power, which, had 
he lived in a play-writing age, would have placed him 
among the greatest dramatists of all time. 

But with all this breadth, there are certain elements in 
Chaucer's England that find no utterance in his works. 
Men and women of many conditions are indeed found 
there, from the knight to the miller and Poet of the 
the plowman, and all are pictured with the Court - 
same vividnesss and truth ; but breadth of observation 
is not of necessity breadth of sympathy. Nowhere does 
he show us the England of Langland, with its plague, 
pestilence, and famine, its fierce indignation flaming up 
into wild outbursts of socialism. f We may suppose 

* " Man of Lawes Tale," and "Clerks Tale.'' 

f See " The Pilgrim and the Ploughman," in Palgrave's "Visions of 
England." 



34 PERIOD OF PREPARA TION. 

Chaucer's ideal plowman to have been after the pattern 
of the one he describes in Canterbury Tales : 

" A trewe swinker and a good was he 
Lyvynge in pees and perfight charitie." * 

Chaucer was the poet of the court, the poet of those 
who dwelt in fine houses clad in rich stuffs, not of those 
who hungered in rain and cold in the fields. He was 
the outcome and voice of the spirit of chivalry, in its 
class distinctions and exclusiveness as well as its splendor. 

His easy-going nature has no touch in it of the re- 
former, the martyr, or the fanatic. He dwelt at ease in 
his sunshiny world of green fields and merry jests, and 
if the heights and the depths in Dante and Shakespeare 
were beyond him, we should be thankful for all we gain 
in his genial and manly company. 

CHAUCER'S WORKS. 

"The father of English poetry" had no English 
masters in his art to whom he could turn for help. The 
poems most in favor at court when he began to write 
were French, and it is to the Norman-French literature 
that he first turned for his models. One of his earliest 
works was the translation of a French love poem, the 
Romaunt of the Rose, and in other early poems he is 
"an English trouvere" By his Italian journey, he was 
brought into contact with another great literature, and, 
after this time, we find many evidences of his close study 
of Dante, Petrarch, and other great writers of the new 
Italy. As his genius developed, he gained in power and 
originality, but from first to last, whether he borrowed 
from France or Italy, he made a story his own, re-creat- 
ing it and breathing into it the breath of his own spirit.f 

* Prologue to " Canterbury Tales," 
| See Table on p. 36. 



CHAUCER'S WORKS. 35 

Before Chaucer, there had been an Anglo-Norman liter- 
ature, and the beginning of a popular English literature ; 
but no great poet had yet combined the spirit of the 
two. It is one of the glories of Chaucer that in his work 
so much is combined and harmonized for the first time. 
He has the Celtic lightness and humor with the English 
solidity and common sense ; he has the literary tradi- 
tions of the Norman trouvcre with the new thought of 
the Italian; he expresses in his very language the end 
of a period of amalgamation, and all these elements 
are made one by the power and personality of his 
genius. 

No illustration of this could be better than that given 
by Lowell. "Chaucer, to whom French must have been 
almost as truly a mother-tongue as English, was familiar 
with all that has been done by Troubadour or Trouvere. 
In him we see the first result of the Norman yeast upon 
the home-baked Saxon loaf. The flour had been honest, 
the paste well kneaded, but the inspiring leaven was 
wanting till the Norman brought it over. Chaucer 
works still in the solid material of his race, but with 
what airy lightness has he not infused it ? Without 
ceasing to be English, he has escaped from being 
insular."* 

Thus Chaucer in more than one way stands for the 
end of the period of preparation. Like his century, he is 
partly of the Middle Ages, and partly of the coming 
Renaissance ; partly Norman and partly English. His 
literary style, as well as his mixed language, remind 
us that he expresses the union of what had been sep- 
arate elements, and that he is at once the end of an old 
order and the beginning of a new. 

* Essay on Chaucer in " My Study Windows," by J. R.LowelL 



36 PERIOD OF PREPARA TION. 

TABLE OF CHAUCER'S PRINCIPAL WORKS. 

" The Romaunt of the Rose," a translation from a French 
poem begun by Guillaume de Lorris and continued by Jean 
de Meun. 

"The A. B. C." The version of a prayer to the Virgin, 
from the French. 

" A Complainte of the Deathe of Pitie." 

" The Boke of The Duchess " : an Elegy on the Duchess 
Blanche (wife of John of Gaunt), who died 1369. 

" The Parliament of Foules." 

" The Complainte of Mars." 

"Troilus and Crysseide." 

" The Legende of Goode Women." 

" The House of Fame." 

" The Canterbury Tales." * 

Among the short poems, " Complaint to his Purse," "The 
good Counseil and Advice to Adam Scrivener," are well known. 

Twenty-five of " The Canterbury Tales " were written and 
some of these are not complete. The entire series, had the poem 
been finished and each pilgrim fulfilled the compact, would 
have consisted of one hundred and twenty-eight tales. 

LANGUAGE AND VERSIFICATION. 

The difficulties of reading Chaucer have been greatly 
overrated. Some, indeed, have thought that in order to 
popularize his works it is necessary to turn them into 
Modern English. But while such a version would pro- 
bably be more widely read, it would undoubtedly be 
devoid of much of the quaint humor and peculiar charm 
which only Chaucer's own words can give. 

The use of the glossary will soon render the student 
familiar with unusual words, and the few following 
explanations of spelling and pronounciation may help 
him to enjoy the rhythm and rhyme, which cannot be 
appreciated without some slight knowledge of fourteenth- 
century English, 

*Some of these Tales were written earlier as separate poems, and afterward 
included in the series. 



C II A ITER'S LANGUAGE AND VERSIFICATION. 37 

One of the first things we notice in reading Chaucer is 
that many words have a final e which has since been 
dropped. This final e was almost always pronounced as 
a separate syllable ; as in the words " Aprille," " swoote" 
(pronounced A-pril-le, swo-te), etc. To understand the 
reason for this, we must go back in the history of the lan- 
guage before Chaucer's time. The early English, or 
Anglo-Saxon, was what is called an inflected language; 
that is, the grammatical relation between words was 
indicated by a change of ending, not, as with us, by 
auxiliary words. The effect of the Norman Conquest 
was to greatly hasten the dropping of these endings, 
their force being supplied by prepositions ; but in the 
fourteenth century this change was not fully completed, 
and the final ^, pronounced as a separate syllable, was a 
remnant of the old inflections. Besides these words of 
Anglo-Saxon origin, there are a number of words de- 
rived from the French, in which the final e is retained 
and generally pronounced as in French verse. The 
beginner, who is not reading Chaucer as a critical student 
of his language, should first- acquaint himself with 
Chaucer's metre, and then be guided by his ear in deciding 
whether the final e should be pronounced. Thus we find 
that the metre of the Prologue, like blank verse, is de- 
decasyllabic, or ten-syllabled, having five feet, each ac- 
cented on the second syllable; hence in order to preserve 
the metre, certain final e's are sounded, others dropped. 
Take for example these opening lines : 

" Whan that | April - | le with | his schowr [ es swoote 
The drought ! of Marche | hath per - | ced to | the roote* 
And bath - | ed eve - | ry veyne j in swich | licour 
Of whiche j virtue | engen - | dred is | the flour." 

— Prologue. 

* The final e in swoote and roote is not required for the metre. It should, 
however, be lightly sounded, and rather adds to the melody of the verse. 



3& PERIOD 0.F PREPARATION. 

In general, however, it nsay be said the final e is pro- 
nounced except, (a) when it precedes a vowel, or (b) before 
the following words, beginning with h; viz., he, his, him, 
hem, hire, hath, Jiadde, have, how, Jier i here; in these cases 
it is elided. 

Pronotinciation. — A is always pronounced broad, as in 
ah; e is like a in China. 

In determining the meaning, the reader will find it a 
help to pronounce the word, and be guided by the sound 
rather than the spelling. In many cases the word will 
then be easily recognized ; thus, syngynge, peynede, fiscli, 
quyk, though unfamiliar to the eye, are readily recog- 
nized by the ear. 

No attempt has been made here to direct the student's 
attention to more than a few essential points ; fuller 
rules on this subject will be found in the introduction 
to Morris's edition of the Prologue, and Knight's Tale, 
or in Professor F. J. Child's " Essay on Chaucer." 

THE CANTERBURY TALES. 

The latest and most famous work of Chaucer is a col- 
lection of separate stories, supposed to be told by pil- 
grims who agree to journey in company to the tomb of 
The canterbury St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. In a 
Tales - general prologue we are told how these 

pilgrims met at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, the district 
opposite to London on the other side of the Thames ; 
how they agreed to be fellows-travelers; how the jolly 
inn-keeper, " Harry Bailly," proposed that each pilgrim 
should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two 
returning. There are, by way of interlude, prologues 
to the several stories thus told, which bind the whole 
series more firmly together, and recall to us the general 
design. The idea of stringing distinct stories on some 
thread of connection is not an uncommon one. Shortly 



THE CANTERBURY TALES. 39 

before Chaucer, Boccaccio had written his Decameronc, 
a collection of stories linked together by a very simple 
expedient. In it a number of gay lords and ladies leave 
Florence during the plague, and, sitting together in a 
beautiful garden, they amuse themselves by telling the 
tales that form the main part of the work. If Chaucer, 
as many suppose, found the suggestion for the plan 
of the Canterbury Talcs in the Dccamcronc, there is 
no doubt that he greatly improved on his original. 
Chaucer's work is founded on a pilgrimage, one of the 
characteristic and familiar features of the life of the 
time. With rare tact he has selected one of the few 
occasions which brought together in temporary good- 
fellowship men and women of different classes and oc- 
cupations. He is thus able to paint the moving life of 
the world about him in all its breadth and variety ; he 
can give to stories told by such chance-assorted com- 
panions a dramatic character and contrast, making 
knight, priest, or miller reveal himself in what he relates. 
The chief interest the prologue has for us lies in the 
freshness and truth with which each member of the little 
party of pilgrims is set before us. As one after another 
of that immortal procession passes by, the dainty smiling 
Prioress, the Merchant with his forked beard 

t i ii« i The Prologue. 

and beaver hat, we know that history does 
not mean dust and dates, but life, and we ourselves seem 
fourteenth-century pilgrims riding with the rest. It is a 
morning in the middle of April, as we with the jolly com- 
pany, thirty in all, with Harry Bailly as "governour," take 
the high-road to Canterbury. The spring that refreshes 
us in the first words of the prologue is all about us. 

" Whan that Aprille with his schowres swoote 
The drought of Marche hath perced to the roote, 
And bathed every veyne in swich licour, 
Of which vertue engendred is the flour ; 



PERIOD Oh PREPARATi 

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethe 
En spired hath in every holte and heethe 
The tendre croppes. and the yonge sonne 
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours i-ronne, 
And smale fowles maken melodie, 
That slepen al the night with open eye. 
So priketh hem nature in here corages : — 
Thanne iongen folk to gon on pilgrimages." 

There rides the Knight, who has fought in fifteen mor- 
tal battles, always honored for his bravery. His hau- 
berk is stained, for he has just returned from a voyage: 
in his bearing he is meek as a maid. 

" He nevere yit no vileinye ne sayde 
In al his lyf, unto no maner wight. 
He was a verray perfight gentil knight. ! " 

With him ther was his sone. a yong squyer, 

A lovyere, and a lusty bacheler, 

With lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse. 

Of twenty veer of age he was I gesse. 

Of his stature he was of evene lengthe. 

And wonderly delyvere, and gret of strengthe. 

And he.hadde ben somtyme in chivachie, 

In Flaundres, in Artoys, and Picardie, 

And born him wel, as of so litel space. 

In hope to stonden in his lady grace. 

Embrowdecl was he, as it were a mede 

Al ful of fresshe floures, white and reede. 

Syngynge he was. or floytygne, al the day ; 

He was as fressh as is the moneth of May. 

Schort was his goune, with sleeves longe and wyde. 

Wel cowde he sitte on hors, and faire ryde. 

He cowde songes make and wel endite. 

Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and write. 

So hote he lovede, that by nightertale 

He sleep no more than doth a nightyngale. 

Curteys he was. loweiy, and servysable, 

And carf byforn his fader at the table." 

After the Knight and the Squire, rides their one attend- 
ant, with round head and brown face, clad in the green 



THE PROLOGUE. 4* 

of the forester. He is the English yeoman, the type of 
those archers whose deadly " gray goose shafts " broke 
the shining ranks of knighthood at Crecy and Poictiers.* 

" There was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, 
That of hire smylyng was ful simple and coy ; 
Hire gretteste ooth ne was but by seynt Loy ; 
And sche was cleped Madame Eglentyne. 
Ful wel sche sang the servise divyne, 
Entuned in hire nose ful semely ; 
And Frensch sche spak fulfaire and fetysly, 
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, 
For Frensch of Parys was to hire unknowe. 
At mete wel i-taught was sche withalle ; 
Sche leet no morsel from hire lippes falle, 
Ne wette hire fyngres in hire sauce deepe. 
Welcowde sche carie a morsel, and wel keepe, 
That no drope ne rllle uppon hire breste. 
In curteisie was set ful moche hire leste. 
Hire overlippe wypede sche so ciene, 
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene 
Of greece, whan sche dronken hadde hire draughte. 
Ful semely after hire mete sche raughte, 
And sikerly sche was of gret disport, 
And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port, 
And peynede hire to countrefete cheere 
Of court, and ben estatlich of manere, 
And to ben holden digne of reverence. 
But for to speken of hire conscience, 
Sche was so charitable and so pitous, 
Sche wolde weepe if that sche sawe a mous 
Caught in a trappe if it were deed or bledde. 
Of smale houndes hadde sche, that sche fedde 
With rosted flessh, or mylk and wastel breed. 
But sore wepte sche if oon of hem were deed, 
Or if men smot it with a yerde smerte ; 
And al was conscience and tendre herte. 
Ful semely hire wympel i-pynched was ; 
Hire nose tretys ; hire eyen greye as glas ; 

* The Passage on the Bow, in Green's " History of the English People," 
v. i, p. 42 t, may be read in class. 



42 PERIOD OF PREPARA TIOxV. 

Hire mouth ful smal, and thereto softe and reed 
But sikerly sche hadde a fair forheed. 
It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe ; 
For hardily sche was not undergrowe. 
Ful fetys was hire cloke, as I was waar. 
Of smal coral aboute hire arm sche baar 
A peire of bedes gauded al with grene ; 
And thereon heng a broch of gold ful schene, 
On which was first i-write a crowned A, 
And after, Amor vincit omnia" 

There ambles the rich, pleasure-loving Monk, with his 
greyhounds ; one of those new-fashioned churchmen 
of the day who have given up the strict monastic rule 
of an earlier time. He cares neither for learning nor 
to work with his hands, but delights in hunting. 

" His heed was balled, that schon as eny glas. 
And eek his face, as he had ben anoynt. 
He was a lord ful fat and in good poynt ; 
His eyen steepe, and rollyng in his heede, 
That stemede as a forneys of a leede ; 
His bootes souple, his hors in gret estate. 
Now certeinly he was a fair prelate." 

The corruption of the Church is also to be seen in the 
next pilgrim, a brawny, jolly Friar, licensed to beg within 
a prescribed district. In the thirteenth century the 
friars, or brothers, had done great good in England, but 
by Chaucer's time they had grown rich, and had for- 
gotten the high purposes for w r hich the order was 
founded. The friar has no threadbare scholar's dress, 
his short cloak is of double worsted. His cowl is stuffed 
with knives and pins, for he is a peddler like many of his 
order.* 

*Wyclif writes of the friars: "They become peddlers, bearing knives, 
purses, pins, and girdles, and spices, and silk, and precious pellure, and 
fouris for women, and thereto small dogs. (Quoted Jusserand, " Eng. 
Wayfaring Life," p. 304.) 



THE PROLOGUE. 43 

" Ful sweetely herde he the confessioun, 
And pleasaunt was his absolucioun ; 
He was an easy man to yeve penaunce 
Ther as he wiste han a good pitaunce." 

After the Merchant, sitting high on his horse, comes 
the Clerk of Oxford : 

" As lene was his hors as is a rake, 
And he was not right fat, I undertake ; 
But loked holwe, and thereto soberly. 
Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy, 
For he hadde geten him yit no benefice, 
Ne was so worldly for to have office. 

Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche, 
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladle teche." 

Then the Sergeant at Lawe, who seems always busier 
than he is ; the Franklin, or farmer, with his red face and 
beard white as a daisy ; the Haberdasher, or small shop- 
keeper, a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer, a Tapicer or 
dealer in carpets or rugs — all these ride in the company. 
Then the Cook, who can "roste and sethe, and boille and 
fry," and make "blank manger " with the best ; the Ship- 
man, whose beard has been shaken by many a tempest, 
and the " Doctour of Phisik." 

" In al this world ne was ther non him lyk 
To speke of phisik and of surgerye ; 
For he was grounded in astronomye." 

Among these is the dashing, red-faced Wife of Bath, 
gayly dressed, with scarlet stockings, new shoes, and a 
hat as broad as a shield, Then, in sharp contrast, the 
parish Priest, the " poure Persoun of a toun," reminding 
us that, in spite of luxurious monks and cheating friars, 
the Church was not wholly corrupt. 



44 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

"Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, 
And in adversite ful pacient ; 

Wyd was his parische, and houses fer asonder, 

But he ne lafte not for reyne ne thonder, 

In sicknesse nor in meschief to visite 

The ferreste in hisparissche, moche and lite. 

Uppon his feet, and in his hond a staf. 

This noble ensample to his scheep he yaf. 

That first he wroughte, and afterwards he taughte. 

Out of the gospel he tho wordescaughte, 

And this figure he addede eek thereto.. 

That if gold ruste, what schal yren doo ? 

For if a prest be foul, on whom we truste. 

No wonder is alewed man to ruste ; 

He waytede after no pompe and reverence, 
Ne makede him a spiced conscience, 
But Criste's lore, and His apostles twelve, 
He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve." 

But we must hurry to the end of this representative 
company: the party is made up by the Plowman, the 
Reeve, or steward, the Miller, who carries a bagpipe, the 
Summoner, an officer in the law courts, the Pardoner, or 
seller of indulgences, his wallet full of pardons, the 
Manciple, or caterer for a college, and last, the Poet 
himself, portly and fair of face, noting with twinkling 
eyes every trick of costume, and looking through all to 
the soul beneath. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE NONNE PRESTES' TALE. 

This story, told by one of the three priests attending 
the Nun, or Prioress, is among the shorter and slighter 
of the Canterbury Tales, and gives us a glimpse of 
only one side of Chaucer's genius. It is a charmingly 
told little fable ; but from it we can form no notion of 
Chaucer's tragic force, or of his power of gorgeous 



INTRODUCTION TO THE NONNE PRESTES' TALE. 45 

description, as revealed to us, for instance, in the chival- 
ric story of The Knight ; nor does it help us to gain any 
notion of the deep tenderness and pathos of Chaucer, 
which overflow in such stories as those of The Clerk, and 
of The Man of Lawe. Yet the Nonne Prestes" Tale has 
its own claims upon our attention and admiration. It is 
one of the most delightful products of Chaucer's quaint 
and abundant humor, and it shows also his dramatic 
vigor as a story-teller. In it Chaucer follows his usual 
practice of going elsewhere for the framework of his 
story. The Nonne Prestes Talc is a version of one of 
those fables, or fablicnx, in which the childlike intelli- 
gence of mediaeval readers delighted. It may have been 
taken directly from the fifty-first fable in a collection by 
Marie de France, a poetess of the early part of the thir- 
teenth century; but it is now thought more probable that 
Chaucer's original was the fifth chapter of an old French 
poem, Lc Roman du Re/iart, where the same fable 
appears in a much longer form/" In either case Chaucer 
has made the story his own. The incidents in the 
Nonne Prestes' Tale are of the simplest, the background 
is of the humblest, — the garden or barnyard of a poor 
widow, — the principal actors are a cock, a hen, and a fox; 
yet out of these every day materials Chaucer has con- 
trived to bring inimitable results. The life of the coun- 
try-poor is described with sympathy and skill ; the 
meagre diet of the widow, her two-roomed, chimneyless 
house, sooty from the smoke that had no escape except 
through the crevices of the roof, her yard fenced in with 
sticks, her little wealth of cows, pigs, and chickens, — all 
this is brought before us with characteristic vividness and 
truth. Then we note the sympathy with which Chaucer 

* These two poems are given in publications of the Chaucer Society : 
" Originals and Analogues," 2d series, pp. 116, 117. The first contains only 
38, the second 454 lines. 



46 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

has contrived to enter into the life of the creatures of the 
farmyard ; the hens taking their sand-bath, or the cock 
clucking when he has found a grain of corn. 

" He chukketh, whan he hath a corn i-founde, 
And to him rennen than his wives alle." 

But truthful as this is, Chauntecleer and Pertelote are 
more than chickens ; they are living characters, with an 
actual human personality. The cock is a good deal of a 
pedant, and enumerates the learned authorities for his 
belief in the significance of dreams, with all the relish, 
and something of the length, of the mediaeval school- 
man. The hen takes the practical and emphatically 
feminine view of the case, urging a resort to the family 
medicine chest, — a proposal which the cock, with an em- 
phatically masculine aversion, passes over in silent con- 
tempt. All through we come across sly strokes of humor, 
as when the cock takes advantage of his wife's ignorance 
to mistranslate the Latin sentence: 

" In principio, 
Mulier est hominis confusio," 

so as to delude her into the belief that it is complimen- 
tary; or when we are told that 

" Alle the hennes in the clos," 

made terrible lamentation about Chauntecleer's capture, 
but Pertelote alone shrieked like a queen, 

" But sovereignly dame Pertelote schrighte." 

The interview in which the fox makes his skillful ap- 
peal to his intended victim's vanity is full of pure fun, 
while the description of the flight and pursuit is a master, 
piece of rapid and nervous narrative. 



THE NONNE PRESTES* TALE. 47 



THE NONNE PRESTES' TALE. 

A poure wydow somdel stope in age, 

Was whilom dwellyng in a narvve cotage, 

Bisyde a grove, stondyng in a dale. 

This wydwe of which I telle yow my tale, 

Syn thilke day that sche was last a wif, 

In pacience ladde a ful symple lyf, 

For litel was hire catel and hire rente 

By housbondrye of such as God hire sente, 

Sche fond hireself, and eek hire doughtren tuo 

Thre large sowes hadde sche, and no mo, 

Thre kyn and eek a scheep that highte Malle. 

Ful sooty was hire hour, and eek hire halle, 

In which she eet ful many a sclender meel, 

Of poynaunt sawce hire needede never a deel. 

No deynte morsel passede thurgh hire throte ; 

Hire dyete was accordant to hire cote. 

Repleccioun ne made hire nevere sik ; 

Attempre dyete was al hire phisik, 

And exercise, and hertes suffisaunce. 

The goute lette hire nothing for to daunce, 

Ne poplexie schente not hire heed ; 

No wyn ne drank sche, nother whit nor reed ; 

Hire bord was served most with whit and blak, 

Milk and broun bred, in which sche fond no lak, 

Seynd bacoun, and somtyme an ey or tweye, 

For she was as it were a maner deye. 

A yerd sche hadde, enclosed al aboute 

With stikkes, and a drye dich withoute, 

In which she hadde a cok, highte Chauntecleer, 

In al the lond of crowyng nas his peer. 

His vois was merier than the merye orgon, 

On masse dayes that in the chirche goon ; 

Wei sikerer was his crowyng in his logge, 

Than is a clok, or an abbay orlogge. 

By nature knew he ech ascencioun. 

Of equinoxial in thilke toun ; 

For whan degrees fyftene were ascended, 

Thanne crew he, that it mighte not ben amendecj. 



4§ PERIOD OF PREPARA TIOX. 

His comb was redder than the fyn coral, 
And bataylld, as it were a castel wal. 
His bile was blak, and as the geet it schon ; 
Lik asure were his legges, and his ton ; 
His nayles whitter than the lilye flour. 
And lik the burnischt gold was his colour, 
This gentil cok hadde in his governaunce 
Sevene hennes, for to don al his plesaunce, 
Whiche were his sustres and his paramoures, 
And wonder like to him, as of coloures. 
Of whiche the faireste hewed on hire throte 
Was cleped fayre damoysele Pertelote. 
Curteys she was, discret, and debonaire, 
And compainable, and bar hireself ful faire. 
Syn thilke day that sche was seven night old, 
That trewely sche hath the herte in hold 
Of Chauntecleer loken in every lith ; 
He lovede hire so, that wel him was therwith. 
But such a joye was it to here hem synge, 
Whan that the brighte sonne gan to springe, 
In swete accord, " my lief is faren on londe." 
For thilke tyme, as I have understonde, 
Bestes and briddes cowde speke and synge. 
And. so byfel, that in a dawenynge, 
As Chauntecleer among his wyves alle 
Sat on his perche, that was in the halle, 
And next him sat this faire Pertelote, 
This Chauntecleer gan gronen in his throte, 
As man that in his dreem is drecched sore. 
And whan that Pertelote thus herde him rore, 
Sche was agast, and sayde, "O herte deere, 
What eyleth yow to grone in this manere? 
Ye ben a verray sleper, fy for schame ! " 
And he answerde and sayde thus, " Madame, 
I praye yow, that ye take it nought agrief : 
By God, me mette I was in such meschief 
Right now, that yit myn herte is sore afright. 
Now God," quod he, " my swevene rede aright, 
And keep my body out of foul prisoun ! 
Me mette, how that I romede up and doun 



THE NONNE PRESTES* TALE. 49 

Withinne oure yerde, wher as I saugh a beest, 

Was lik an hound, and wolde han maad areest 

Upon my body, and wolde han had me deed. 

His colour was betwixe yelwe and reed ; 

And tipped was his tail, and bothe his eeres 

With blak, unlik the remenaunt of his heres ; 

His snovvte smal, with glowyng eyen tweye. 

Yet of his look for feere almost I deye ; 

This causede my gronyng douteles." 

" Avoy ! " quod sche, " fy on yow, herteles ! 

"Alias ! " quod sche, " for, by that God above I 

Now han ye lost myn herte and al my love ; 

I can nought love a coward, by my feith. 

For certes, what so eny womman seith, 

We alle desiren, if it mighte be, 

To han housbondes, hardy, wise, and fre, 

And secre, and no nygard, ne no fool, 

Ne him that is agast of every tool, 

Ne noon avauntour, by that God above ! 

How dorste ye sayn for schame unto youre love, 

That any thing mighte make yow aferd ? 

Han ye no mannes herte, and han a berd ? 

Alias ! and konne ye ben agast of swevenys ? 

Nothing, God wot, but vanite in swevene is. 

Swevenes engendren of replecciouns, 

And ofte of fume, and of complecciouns, 

Whan humours ben to abundaunt in a wight. 

Certes this dreem, which ye han met to-night, 

Cometh of the grete superfluity 

Of youre reede colera, parde, 

Which causeth folk to dremen in here dremes 

Of arvves, and of fyr with reede leemes, 

Of grete bestes, that thai woln hem byte, 

Of contek, and of whelpes greete and lite; 

Right as the humour of malencolie 

Causeth ful many a man, in sleep, to crye, 

For fere of beres, or of boles blake, 

Or elles blake develes woln him take. 

Of othere humours couthe I telle also, 

That wirken many a man in slep ful woo 



5° PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

But I wol passe as lightly as I can. 

Lo Catoun, which that was so wis a man, 

Sayde he nought thus, ne do no fors of dreme ? 

Now sire," quod sche, " whan we flen fro the beemes, 

For Goddes love, as tak som laxatyf ; 

Up peril of my soule, and of my lyf, 

I counseille yow the beste, I wol not lye, 

That bothe of colere, and of malencolye 

Ye purge yow ; and for ye schul nat tarye, 

Though in this toun is noon apotecarie, 

I schal myself to herbes techen yow, 

That schul ben for youre hele, and for youre prow ; 

And in oure yerd tho herbes schal I fynde, 

The whiche han of here proprete by kynde 

To purgen yow bynethe, and eek above. 

Forget not this, for Goddes oughne love ! 

Ye ben ful colerik of compleccioun, 

Ware the sonne in his ascencioun 

Ne fynde yow not replet of humours hote ; 

And if it do, I dar wel laye a grote, 

That ye schul have a fevere terciane, 

Or an agu, that may be youre bane. 

A day or tuo ye schul han digestives 

Of.wormes, or ye take youre laxatives, 

Of lauriol, centaure, and fumetere, 

Or elles of ellebor, that groweth there, 

Of catapuce, or of gaytres beryis, 

Of erbe yve, growyng in oure yerd, that mery is 

Pekke hem upright as thay growe, and ete hem in. 

Be mery, housbonde, for youre fader kyn ! 

Dredeth no dreem ; I can say yow no more." 

" Madam," quod he, " graunt mercy of youre lore. 

But natheles, as touching daun Catoun 

That hath of wisdom such a gret renoun, 

Though that he bad no dremes for to drede, 

By God, men may in olde bookes rede 

Of many a man, more of auctorite 

Than evere Catoun was, so mot I the, 

That al the revers sayn of this sentence, 

And han wel founden by experience, 



THE NONNE PRESTES' TALE. 5 1 

That dremes ben significaciouns, 
As wel of joye, as tribulaciouns, 
That folk enduren in this lif present. 

" Lo, in the lif of Seint Kenelm, I rede, 

That was Kenulphus sone, the noble king 

Of Mercenrike, how Kenelm mette a thing. 

A lite er he was mordred, on a day 

His mordre in his avysioun he say. 

His norice him expouned every del 

His swevene, and bad him for to kepe him wel 

For traisoun ; but he nas but seven yer old, 

And therfore litel tale hath he told 

Of eny drem, so holy was his herte. 

By God, I hadde levere than my scherte, 

That ye hadde rad his legende, as have I. 

Dame Pertelote, I saye yow trewely, 

Macrobeus, that writ the avisioun 

In Affrike of the worthy Cipioun, 

Affermeth dremes, and saith that thay been 

Warnyng of thinges that men after seen. 

And forther more, I pray yow loketh wel 

In the olde Testament, of Daniel, 

If he held dremes eny vanyte. 

Red eek of Joseph, and ther schul ye see 

Wher dremes ben somtyme (I say nought alle) 

Warnyng of thinges that schul after falle. 

Loke of Egipte the King daun Pharao, 

His bakere and his botiler also, 

Wher thay ne felte noon effect in dremes. 

Who so wol seken actes of sondry remes, 

May rede of dremes many a wonder thing. 

Lo Cresus, which that was of Lyde King, 

Mette he not that he sat upon a tre, 

Which signifiede he schulde anhanged be? 

Lo hire Andromacha, Ectores wif, 

That day that Ector schulde lese his lif, 

Sche dremede on the same night byforn, 

How that the lif of Ector schulde be lorn, 

If thilke day he wente in to bataylle ; 

Sche warnede him, but it mighte nought availle ; 



52 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

He wente for to fighte natheles, 

And he was slayn anoon of Achilles. 

But thilke tale is al to long to telle, 

And eek it is neigh day, I may not duelle. 

Schortly I saye, as for conclusioun 

That I schal nan of this avisioun. 

Adversite ; and I saye forther-more, 

That I ne telle of laxatives no store, 

For thay ben venymous, I wot right wel ; 

I hem defye, I love hem nevere a del. 

Now let us speke of mirthe, and stynte al this ; 

Madame Pertelote, so have I blis, 

Of a thing God hath sent me large grace ; 

For whan I see the beaute of your face, 

Ye ben so scarlet reed aboute your eyghen, 

It maketh al my drede for to deyghen, 

For, also siker as In principio, 

Miriier est homi?iis confusio. 

(Madame, the sentence of this Latyn is, 

Womman is mannes joye and al his blis.) 

" I am so ful of joye and of solas 

That I defye bothe swevene and drem ! " 

And with that word he fleigh down fro the beem, 

For it was day, and eek his hennes alle ; 

And with a chuk he gan hem for to calle, 

For he hadde founde a corn, lay in the yerd. 

Real he was, he was no more aferd ; 

He loketh as it were a grim lioun ; 
And on his toon he rometh up and doun, 
Him deyneth not to sette his foot to grounde. 
He chukketh, whan he hath a corn i-founde, 
And to him rennen than his wives alle. 
Thus real, as a prince is in his halle, 
Leve I this Chauntecleer in his pasture ; 
And after wol I telle his aventure. 

Whan that the moneth in which the world bigan, 
That highte March, whan God first made man, 
Was complet, and y-passed were also, 
Syn March bygan, thritty dayes and tuo, 



THE NONNE PRESTES' TALE. 53 

Byfel that Chauntecleer in al his pride, 

His seven vvyves walkyng him by syde, 

Caste up his eyghen to the brighte sonne, 

That in the signe of Taurus hadde i-ronne 

Twenty degrees and oon, and somwhat more ; 

He knew by kynde, and by noon other lore, 

That it was prime, and crew with blisful stevene. 

" The sonne," he sayde, " is clomben up on hevene 

Fourty degrees and oon, and more i-wis. 

Madame Pertelote, my worldes blis, 

Herkneth these blisful briddes how they synge, 

And seth the fressche floures how they springe ; 

Ful is myn hert of revel and solaas." 

But sodeinly him fel a sorweful caas ; 

For evere the latter ende of joye is wo. 

Got wot that worldly joye is soone ago ; 

And if a rethor couthe faire endite, 

He in a chronique saufly mighte it write, 

As for a soverayn notabilite. 

Now every wys man let him herkne me; 

This story is also trewe, I undertake, 

As is the book of Launcelot de Lake, 

That worn men holde in ful gret reverence. 

Now wol I torne agayn to my sentence. 

A col-fox, ful of sleigh iniquite, 

That in the grove hadde woned yeres thre, 

By heigh ymaginacioun forncast, 

The same nighte thurghout the hegges brast 

Into the yerd, ther, Chauntecleer the faire 

Was wont, and eek his wyves, to repaire ; 

And in a bed of wortes stille he lay, 

Til it was passed undern of the day, 

Waytyng his tyme on Chauntecleer to falle ; 

As gladly doon these homicides alle, 

That in awayte lyggen to mordre men. 

O false mordrer lurkyng in thy den ! 

O newe Scariot, newe Genilon ! 

False dissimulour, O Greet Sinon, 

That broughtest Troye al outrely to sorwe ! 

O Chauntecleer, accursed be that morwe, 



54 PERIOD OF PREPARA TIOJST. 

That thou into that yerd floughe fro the bemes ! 

Thou were ful wel i-warned by thy dremes, 

That thilke day was perilous to the. 

But what that God forvvot mot needes be 

After the opynyoun of certeyn clerkis. 

Witnesse on him that eny perfit clerk is, 

That in scole is gret altercacioun 

In this matere, and gret disputisioun, 

And hath ben of an hundred thousend men. 

But I ne cannot bulte it to the bren, 

As can the holy doctor Augustyn, 

Or Boece, or the Bischop Bradwardyn, 

Whether that Goddes worthy forwetyng 

Streineth me needely for to don a thing, 

(Needely clepe I simple necessite) ; 

Or elles if fre choys be graunted me 

To do that same thing, or do it nought, 

Though God forwot it, er that it was wrought : 

Or if his wityng streyneth nevere a deel, 

But by necessite condicionel, 

I wol not han to do of such mateere ; 

My tale is of a cok, as ye schul heere, 

That took his counseil of his wyf with sorwe, 

To" walken in the yerd upon the morwe, 

That he hadde met the drem, that I tolde. 

Wommennes counseils ben ful ofte colde ; 

Wommennes counseils broughte us first to woo, 

And made Adam fro paradys to go, 

Ther as he was ful merye, and well at ese. 

But for I not, to whom it mighte displese, 

If I counseil of wommen wolde blame, 

Passe over, for I sayde it in my game. 

Red auctours, wher thay trete of such mateere, 

And what they sayn of wommen ye may heere, 

These been cokkes wordes, and not myne ; 

I can noon harme of no womman divine. 

Faire in the sond, to bathe hire merily, 

Lith Pertelote, and alle hire sustres by, 

Agayn the sonne ; and Chauntecleer so free 

Sang merier than the mermayde in the see; 



THE NONNE PEESTES' TALE. 55 

For Phisiologus seith sikerly, 

How that thay singen wel and merily. 

And so byfel that as he caste his eye, 

Among the wortes on a boterflye, 

He was war of this fox that lay ful lowe. 

No thing ne liste him thanne for to crowe, 

But cryde anon " cok, cok," and up he sterte, 

As man that was affrayed in his herte. 

For naturelly a beest desireth flee 

Fro his contrarie, if he may it see, 

Though he nevere erst hadde seyn it with his eye, 

This Chauntecleer, whan he gan him espye, 

He wolde han fled, but that the fox anon 

Saide, " Gentil sire, alias ! wher wol ye goon ? 

Be ye affrayd of me that am youre freend ? 

Now certes, I were worse than a feend, 

If I to yow wolde harm or vileynye. 

I am nought come youre counsail for tespye. 

But trewely the cause of my comynge 

Was oonly for to herkne how that ye singe. 

For trewely ye have als merye a stevene, 

As enyaungel hath, that is in hevene ; 

Therwith ye han in musik more felynge, 

Than hadde Boece, or eny that can synge. 

My lord youre fader (God -his soule blesse) 

And eek youre moder of hire gentilesse 

Han in myn house ibeen, to my gret ese ; 

And certes, sire, ful fayn wolde I yow plese. 

But for men speke of syngyng, I wol saye, 

So mot I brouke wel myn eyen tweye, 

Save you, I herde nevere man so synge, 

As dede youre fader in the morwenynge. 

Certes it was of herte al that he song, 

And for to make his vois the more strong, 

He wolde so peyne him, that with bothe his eyen 

He moste wynke, so lowde he wolde crien, 

And stonden on his typtoon therwithal, 

And strecche forth his nekke long and smal. 

And eke he was of such discrecioun ; 

That ther nas no man in no regioun 



5 6 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

That him in song or wisdom mighte passe. 
I have wel rad in daun Burnel the Asse 
Among his vers, how that ther was a cok, 
For that a prestes sone yaf him a knok 
Upon his leg, whil he was yong and nyce, 
He made him for to lese his benefice. 
But certyn ther nis no comparisoun 
Betwix the wisdom and discrecioun 
Of youre fader, and of his subtilte. 
Now syngeth, sire, for seinte Charite, 
Let se, konne ye youre fader countrefete ? " 
This chauntecleer his wynges gan to bete, 
As man that couthe his tresoun nought espye> 
So was he ravyssht with his flaterie. 

Alias ! ye lordes, many a fals flatour 
Is in youre courtes, and many a losengour, 
That plesen yow wel more, by my faith, 
Than he that sothfastnesse unto yow saith. 
Redeth Ecclesiaste of flaterie ; 
Betth war, ye lordes, of here treccherie. 
This chauntecleer stood heighe upon his toos, 
Strecching his nekke, and held his eyen cloos, 
And gan to crowe lowde for the noones ; 
And daun Russel the fox sterte up at oones, 
And by the garget hente Chauntecleer, 
And on his bak toward the woode him beer. 
For yit was ther no man that hadde him sewed. 
O destiny, that maist not ben eschewed ! 
Alas, that Chauntecleer fleigh fro the bemes ! 
Alias, his wif ne roughte nought of dremes ! 
And on a Friday fel al this mischaunce. 

Certes such cry ne lamentacioun 
Was nevere of ladies maad, when Ilioun 
Was wonne, and Pirrus with his streite swerd, 
Whan he hadde hent Kyng Priam by the berd, 
And slayn him (as saith us Eneydos), 
As maden alle the hennes in the clos, 
Whan they hadde seyn of Chauntecleer the sighte. 
But sovraignly dame Pertelote schrighte, 
Ful lowder than dide Hasdrubales wyf ; 
Whan that hire housbonde hadde lost his lyf, 



THE NONNE PRESTES' TALE. 57 

And that the Romayns hackle i-brent Cartage, 

Sche was so ful of torment and of rage. 

That wilfully into the fyr sche sterte, 

And brende hirselven with a stedefast herte. 

O woful hennes, righte so criden ye, 

As, whan that Nero brente the cite 

Of Rome, criden senatoures wyves, 

For that here housbondes losten alle here lyves ; 

Withouten gult this Nero hath hem slayn. 

Now wol I torne to my tale agayn ; 
This sely wydwe, and eek hire doughtres tuo, 
Herden these hennes crie and maken wo, 
And out at dores sterten thay anoon, 
And seyen the fox toward the grove goon, 
Ank bar upon his bak the cok away ; 
They criden, " Out ! harrow and weylaway ! 
Ha, ha, the fox! " and after him they ran, 
And eek with staves many another man ; 
Ran Colle our dogge, and Talbot, and Garlond, 
And Malkyn, with a distaf in hire hond ; 
Ran cow and calf, and eek the very hogges, 
So were they fered for berkyng of the dogges 
And schowtyng of the men and wymmen eke, 
Thay ronne so hem thoughte here herte breke, 
Thay yelleden as feendes doon in helle ; 
The dokes criden as men wolde hem quelle ; 
The gees for fere flowen over the trees ; 
Out of the hyves cam the swarm of bees ; 
So hidous was the noyse, a benedicite ! 
Certes he jakke straw, and his meyn6, 
Ne maden nevere schoutes half so schrille, 
Whan that thay wolden eny Flemyng kille, 
As thilke day was maad upon the fox. 
Of bras thay broughten bemes, and of box, 
Of horn, of boon, in whiche thay blewe and powpede 
And therewithal thay schrykede and thay howpede ; 
It semede as that hevene schulde falle. 

Now, goode men, I praye you herkneth alle; 
Lo, how fortune torneth sodeinly 
The hope and pride eek of hire enemy ! . 



5 8 PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

This cok that lay upon the foxes bak, 

In all his drecle, unto the fox he spak, 

And saide, " Sire, if that I were as ye, 

Yet schulde I sayn (as wis God helpe me), 

Turneth ayein, ye proude cherles alle ! 

A verray pestilens upon yow falle ! 

Now am I come unto this woodes syde, 

Maugre youre heed, the cok schal heer abyde ; 

I wol him ete in faith, and that anoon," 

The fox answerde, " In faith, it schal be doon." 

And as he spak that word, al sodeinly 

This cok brak from his mouth delyverly; 

And heigh upon a tree he fleigh anoon. 

And whan the fox seigh that he was i-goon, 

" Alias ! " quod he, " O Chauntecleer, alias ! 

I have to yow," quod he, " y-don trespas, 

In-as-moche as I makede yow aferd, 

Whan I yow hente, and broughte out of the yerd ; 

But, sire, I dede it in no wikke entente ; 

Com doun, and I schal telle yow what I mente. 

I schal saye soth to you, God help me so ! " 

" Nay than," quod he, " I schrewe us bothe tuo 

And first I schrewe myself, bothe blood and boones, 

If thou bigile me any ofter than oones. 

Thou schalt no more, thurgh thy flaterye, 

Do me to synge and wynke with myn eye. 

For he that wynketh, whan he scholde see, 

Al wilfully, God let him never the ! " 

" Nay," quod the fox, " but God yive him meschaunce, 

That is so undiscret of governaunce, 

That jangieth whan he scholde holde his pees." 

Lo, such it is for to be reccheles, 

And necgligent, and truste on flaterie. 

But ye that holden this tale a folye, 

As of a fox, or of a cok and hen, 

Taketh the moralite thereof, goode men. 

For seint Poul saith, that al that writen is, 

To oure doctrine it is i-write i-wys. 

Taketh the fruyt, and let the chaf be stille. 

Now goode God, if that it be thy wille, 



GOOD COUNSEIL. 59 

As saith my lord, so make us alle good men ; 
And bringe us to his heighe blisse. Amen. 



GOOD COUNSEIL. 

Fie fro the pres, and dwelle with sothfastnesse : 
Suffice thee thy good, though hit be smal ; 
For hord hath hate, and clymbyng tikelnesse, 
Pres hath envye, and wele blent over al 
Savour no more then thee behove shal ; 
Do wel thy-self that other folk canst rede, 
And trouthe thee shal delyver, hit ys no drede. 

Peyne thee not eche croked to redresse 

In trust of hir that turneth as a bal, 

Gret reste stant in lytil besynesse ; . 

Bewar also to spurne ayein a nal, 

Stryve not as doth a crokke with a wal ; 

Daunte thy-selfe that dauntest otheres dede, 

And trouthe thee shal delyver, hit is no drede. 

That thee is sent receyve in buxomnesse, 
The wrastling of this world asketh a fal ; 
Here is no hoom, here is but wyldernesse. 
Forth pilgrime, forth ! forth best, out of thy stal ! 
Loke up on hye, and thonke God of al ; 
Weyve thy lust, and let thy gost thee lede, 
And trouthe shal thee delyver, hit is no drede. 



6o PERIOD OF PREPARATION. 

NOTES AND REFERENCES. 

1. History. — Pauli's " Pictures of Old England " (valuable 
for social conditions, etc., in Chaucer's time); Jusserand's 
English " Way-faring Life in the Fourteenth Century " ; 
Wright's " History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in 
England During the Middle Ages"; Cutt's "Scenes and 
Characters in the Middle Ages"; Brown's "Chaucer's Eng- 
land." S. Lanier's "Boys' Froissart" and Bulfinch's "Age of 
Chivalry " may be used with class. 

2. Chaucer. — Ward's " Life of " (English Men of Let- 
ters Series), Lowell's Essay on, in "My Study Windows"; 
Minto's " English Poets"; Haweis's " Chaucer for Schools"; 
Alexander Smith's Essay on, in " Dreamthorpe " (contains 
prose version of "Knight's Tale"; not strictly reliable, but 
gives graphic pictures of chivalry) ; Saunders's " Canterbury 
Tales"; Lounsbury's "Chaucer," three volumes. The poem 
on "The Pilgrim and the Ploughman " in PaJgrave's "Visions 
of England," p. &2, is admirable from critical as well as poeti- 
cal point of view, and should be read with class. 

3. Chaucer's Works. — Edition in Clarendon Press series is 
recommended ; at present it contains The Prologue, The 
Knight's, Nonne Prestes', Prioress', Monk's, Clerk's, Squire's 
tales, The Rhyme of Sir Thopas, and a number of the minor 
poems. 

For works not 'included in this edition, Bell's or Gilman's 
"Chaucer" may be used, also Wright's "Canterbury Tales," 
with notes. 

4. Langland. — Wharton's " History of English Poetry," sec- 
tion 8 ; Morley's " English Writers," vol. iv. 

5. Language. — Marsh's "Lectures on the English Lan- 
guage"; Lounsbury's "English Language"; Earle's "Phi- 
lology of the English Tongue "; Carpenter's " English in the 
Fourteenth Century"; Trench's "English Past and Present." 



TABLE. 6 1 

Table III. — Chaucer's Century, i 300-1400. 



SOVEREIGNS. 



LITERATURE. 



Edward III., Chaucer's birth, 



HISTORICAL EVENTS. 



1327-1377. 



Richard II. 

1377-1399- 



Henry IV. 
1399-1413. 



[340. 

Lawrence Minot : 

Poems, 1350 ; Poemsj 
on Wars of Edward 1 
III., 1352. 

Sir John Mande- 
ville: Travels, Voy- 
ages, 1356. 

Chaucer probably 
p^age to Lionel's 
wife, 1357. ' 

Wm. Langland, 
1332-1400 : " Vision 
of Piers Plowman." 

Chaucer taken pris- 
oner by the French, 
J 359 ; his " Dethe 
of Blanche the Duch- 
ess," 1369; employed 
on a mission to Pisa 
and Genoa, meets 
Petrarch, 1372 ; Ap- 
pointed Controller 
of Customs, 1374. 

John Barbour: "The 
Bruce," 1375. 

John Wyclif, 1324- 
1384 ; Translation of 
the Bible ; Treatise 
"De Domino." 

Chaucer sent on mis- 
sion to France. 1377. 

John Trevisa: Trans- 
lation of Higdens's 
" Polychronicon," 
1387- 

Chaucer appointed 
Clerk of King's 
Works at Windsor, 



John Gower, 1325 
1408 (?); " Confessio 
Amantis," 1391 (?) 

Chaucer is granted 
a pension of ^20 a 
year, 1394 ; pension 
doubled, 1399 ; his 
death, 1400. 



Death of Bruce, 1329. 
Battle of Halidon Hill, 

1333- 
Edward claims France 

from Brabant, 1339. 

Beginning of Hundred 
Years' War, 1339. 

Battles of Crecy and 
Neville's Cross, 1346. 

Gunpowder first used at 
Crecy. 

First appearance of Black 
Death, 1349. 

First statute of Praemu- 
nire, 1353. 

Battle of Poictiers, 1356. 

Peace of Bretigny, 1360. 

Renewal of French War, 
1368. 

Uprising of Jack Straw, 

1378. 
Wat Tyler's revolt, 1381. 

Condemnation of Wyclif 
at Blackfriars, 1382. 

Suppression of the Poor 
Preachers, 1382. 

Death of Wyclif, 1384. 

Truce with France, 1389. 

Persecution of Lollards, 
1399. 



FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



Dante, 1265-1321. 

" Divina Commedia," 
begun about 1307. 

Petrarch, 1304-1374. 

Sonnets and Poems. 

Petrarch crowned at 
Rome, 1341. 

Boccaccio, 1313-1375. 

" Decameron," 1350. 

" Teseide." 

War between Florence 
and Pisa. English 
auxiliaries employed 
by the latter, 1362. 

Artists : 
Giotto, 1276-1336. 
Taddeo Gaddi, 1300- 
1366. 

Ghiberti, 1378-1455. 

Brunelleschi, 1377- 

1446. 

GERMANY. 

The Meistersinger. 
Hubrecht Van Eyck. 



Froissart, 1337-1410. 
Chronicles. 



PART II. 



PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

(140O-1660.) 



PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

1400 to 1660. 



Cbapter 1T. 

The Revival of Learning. 

THE COMING OF THE NEW LEARNING TO ENGLAND. 

The century following the death of Chaucer is gener- 
ally regarded as "the most barren" in the history of the 
literature. Indeed, after the year 1400, we find little evi- 
dence of a fresh and vigorous life in English literature 
until the year 1579, when Edmund Spenser's first poem 
was given to the world. Yet the fifteenth century is 
nevertheless of far-reaching importance in the history of 
England's mental growth. It was a time of national 
education. If England did not produce great literature, 
she received from many sources new thoughts and im- 
pulses, which replenished and broadened her life, and 
which later found expression in her literary work. In 
the fifteenth century England passed definitely out of 
the bounds of the Middle Ages, and came to share as a 
nation in the inspiration of the Renaissance, which, in 
the century before, only such rare individual minds as 
Chaucer and Wyclif had known by anticipation. The 
feudal society of the middle ages was finally shattered 
in England by the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), in 
which great, numbers of the old nobility The New 
perished. The outworn scholastic learning, Learning, 
the relic of the mediaeval monastic schools, was cast 
aside, and the reorganization of the entire educational 

65 



66 PERIOD OF ITALIAX IXFLUEXCE. 

system of England according to the advanced ideas of 
Italy was begun. 

In the early years of the fifteenth century, the old 

learning had ceased to satisfy, and the new had not yet 
come. At Oxford the spirit of free inquiry, stimulated by 
Wyclif, had been sternly suppressed. Versifiers worked 
painstakingly after the pattern set by Chaucer : but 
literature, like learning, waited the breath of a new 
impulse. So England lay — 

"' Between two worlds, 
One dead, the other powerless to be born." * 

Then the new life manifested itself amid the breaking 
up of the old order. At Oxford, between 1430 and 1485, 
three colleges were established, and a Library was 
Foundation of founded by Humphrey, Duke of Glouces- 
Coiieges. ter> About the middle of the century 

Henry VI. founded Kings, and Margaret of Anjou 
Queen's College, Cambridge, and. in the same reign, 
the great school of Eton was established. Three Uni- 
versities arose in Scotland between 1410 and 1494. 
But even more important than the increased opportunities 
for education, was the introduction of new methods and 
subjects of stud}-. The knowledge of Greek life and 
literature, almost wholly lost during the Middle Ages, had 
stirred Italy with the power of a fresh revelation. Chryso- 
loras. an ambassador from Constantinople, had begun to 
teach Greek" in Florence in 1395. and upon the Fall of 
Constantinople | 14.5 31 numbers of Greek scholars took 
refuge in Italy, bringing precious manuscripts and the 
treasures of an old thought which Europe hailed as 
''new." Italy became the University of Europe, and, 
toward the end of the fifteenth century, English scholars 
learned at Padua, at Bologna, or at the Florence of 

* Mathew Arnold's " Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse." 



COMING OF THE NEW LEARNING TO ENGLAND. 67 

Lorenzo di Medici, what they taught at Oxford or at 
Cambridge. Cornelius Vitelli, an Italian exile, taught 
Greek at Oxford before 1475 ; there, too, William Grocyn 
lectured on Greek, in 1491, after he had studied under 
Vitelli, and in Florence and Venice. Among Grocyn's 
hearers was the young Sir TJwmas More, who was later 
to embody the new spirit in his history of Richard III., 
and in the Utopia. We have thus an illustration of the 
way in which the New Learning sprung from Italian to 
Englishman, and from the English scholar to the English 
writer, thus passing out of the college into the wider 
sphere of literature. Among this band of reformers was 
Thomas Linacre, a learned physician ; John Colet, who 
studied the New Testament in the original, and who 
started a system of popular education by founding in 
1 5 10 the Grammar School of St. Paul ; Erasmus, the 
famous Dutch scholar, who taught Greek at Cambridge, 
and wrote at More's house his Praise of Folly. 

Side by side with the new learning came the new 
means men had found for its diffusion. William Caxton, 
who had learned the strange art of printing in Holland, 
returned to England in 1474, and set up his 
press at Westminster at " the sign of the Red 
Pale." Here he published the Game and Playe of the 
Clicsse (1474), the first book printed in England. Caxton 
was no mere tradesman ; he was prompted by a deep and 
unselfish love for literature. His press gave England 
the best he knew — the poems of Chaucer, the Morte 
d' Arthur of Sir Thomas Mallory, a noble book on which 
Tennyson has based his Idyls of the King. Our first 
printer was himself an industrious translator ; the favorite 
of royal and noble patrons of learning. " Many noble 
and divers gentlemen " discussed literary matters with him 
in his humble workshop; among the rest, John Tiptoft, 
Earl of Worcester^ the first English scholar of his time ? 



68 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

who has been called " the first fruits of the Italian 
Renaissance in England." 

While the touch of Greek beauty and philosophy, re- 
stored and immortal after their burial of a thousand 
The discovery of y eai ' s > was thus reanimating Europe, the 
the new world, horizon of the world was suddenly en- 
larged by a series of great discoveries. In i486 Diaz 
discovered the Cape of Good Hope ; in 1492 Columbus 
penetrated the sea of darkness and gave to civilization a 
new world ; and in 1497 Vasco da Gama rounded Africa 
and made a new path to India. England shared in this 
fever of exploration, and in 1497 the Cabots, sent by 
Henry VII., " to subdue land unknown to all Christians," 
saw the main land of America. We can hardly overesti- 
mate the impetus given to the mental life of Europe by 
such a sudden rush of new ideas. The opportunities for 
life and action were multiplying; man's familiar earth 
was expanding on every side. The air was charged with 
wonder and romance; the imaginations of explorers was 
alive with the dreams of a poet, and cities shining with 
gold, or fountains of perpetual youth, were sought for in 
the excitement of sensation which made the impossible 
seem a thing of every day. 

In the midst of all the new activity, Copernicus 

(1500) put forth his theory that, instead of being the 

center of the universe, round which the whole heavens 

revolved, the solid earth was but a satellite 

Copernicus. . . . . 

in motion round the central sun. While this 
conception, so startling to men's most fundamental 
notions, was slow to gain general acceptance, it was an- 
other element of wonder and of change. 

The Church was quickened by the currents of this new 
life. Men chafed at its corrupt wealth, and narrow 
mediaeval views. The Bible was translated and made the 
book of the people. Luther, the type of the unfettered, 



COMING OF THE NE W LEARNING TO ENGLAND. 69 

individual conscience, faced pope and cardinal with his 
Here I stand, Martin Luther ; I cannot do otherwise : 
God help me." This mighty upheaval The Reforma . 
shook England as well as Germany. The tion - 
year of 1526 saw the introduction of Tyndale's trans- 
lation of the Bible, and ten years later the policy of 
Henry VIII. withdrew the Church in England from the 
headship of the pope. 

Thus England came to share in the diverse activities of 
the Renaissance, intellectual, maritime, and religious ; in 
the revival of learning, the discovery of the world, and the 
Reformation. In the fifteenth century, she had absorbed 
and stored up many vital influences; early in 

. . . Summary. 

the sixteenth century these slowly accumu- 
lated forces, these new emotions and ideas, began to find 
an outlet in the work of a new class of writers, and we 
reach the threshold of the Elizabethan era, the time when 
the Renaissance found utterance in English literature. 

THE EXPRESSION OF THE NEW LEARNING IN 
LITERATURE. 

The first conspicuous example of the influence of Italy 
on English verse is found in the poems of Sir Thomas 
Wyatt and of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. These 
noblemen belonged to the new class of Wyatt and 
" Courtly Makers,"* poets of the court Surrey, 
circle, in whose brilliant and crowded lives the making of 
verses was but the graceful and incidental accomplish- 
ment of the finished cavalier. Poetry was a court fashion, 
and Henry VIII., a patron of the new learning, was him- 
self a writer of songs. Both Wyatt and Surrey were 
translators as well as imitators of the Italian poetry, and 

* Maker is a poet, one who creates. Poet from Greek iroLrjTr]Q , a maker. 
Troubadour, or trouvere, from the French trouver, to find; one who invents, 
or makes. 



yo PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

their effect on literature was even greater than the in- 
trinsic value of their work. They introduced the son- 
net, which Petrarch had recently brought to great per- 
fection — almost the only highly artificial poetic form ever 
successfully transplanted to England. Surrey did even 
more for the future of English poetry. In his partial trans- 
lation of Virgil's JE?iead, he adopted from the Italian 
the unrhymed ten-syllable measure (iambic pentameter), 
which we call blank verse. This metre the dramatists of 
Elizabeth's time thus found ready to their hand. Used 
in the first English tragedy, the Gorbuduc, or Fcrrcx and 
Porrex, of Saekville and Norton (1562), improved by 
Marlowe and by Shakespeare, it was made the epic verse 
of English poetry in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. 
But Wyatt and Surrey did more than use Italian metres 
and poetic forms ; they had absorbed, also, the sentiment 
and thought of Italy, and, in their songs and sonnets, deal 
with "the complexities of love," and kindred themes, ac- 
cording to the best Italian models. While we may weary 
of their conventional gamut of sighs and groans, we must 
think of these Courtly Makers as doing a great work by 
bringing to English poetry that new Italy which was the 
fairy godmother of Elizabethan literature. The publica- 
tion, in 1557, of the work of these two poets, in a collec- 
tion known as TotteVs Miscellany of Uncertain Authors. 
did much to popularize the new style of writing; and 
with that year the Elizabethan period may conveniently 
be said to begin. 

The extent and importance of Italy's influence in 
England, whether on education or literature, 

Italian Influence. . , . . , . . . 

can be appreciated only by careful study. 
li Every breeze was dusty with the golden pollen of 
Greece, Rome, and of Italy."* Sir Thomas More wrote a 
life of Pico di Mirandola, a great leader in the new Italian 
* Lowell's Essay on Spenser in " Among My Books," p. 149. 



THE NEW LEARNING IN LITERATURE. 7 1 

culture. In Sackville's Mirror for Magistrates (1563), we 
recognize the influence of Dante, and the Faerie Queene 
of Edmund Spe riser (1590) is aglow with the warmer and 
more prodigal beauty of the South, and filled with rem- 
iniscences of the romantic poems of Tasso and Ariosto. 

Through the example and stimulus of Italy, the litera- 
tures of Greece and Rome were made a living element in 
English culture. Not only did scholars and the fine 
ladies of the court pore over their Plato in The Work of 
Greek; translators were busily at workmak- the Translators - 
ing the great classics the common quarry for all who 
could read the English tongue. During the latter half 
of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth cen- 
turies, Virgil's Aineid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, numbers of 
Seneca's plays, and Homer, in the famous translation of 
Chapman, were thus made English literature. The Eliz- 
abethan writers delighted in a somewhat ostentatious dis- 
play of this newly acquired learning, and their works are 
often filled with classic allusions which we should now 
consider commonplace. But as a quickening power their 
effect was incalculable. Shakespeare's use of Sir Thomas 
North's translation of Plutarctis Lives, admirably illus- 
trates the way in which the Translator supplied material 
for the Author. Out of North's version Shakespeare 
built Wis Julius Ccesar, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, 
and, to some extent, Timon of Athens. The literature of 
Italy was likewise thrown open to the English reader. 
Harrington translated Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1591), 
Fairfax translated Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1600), 
while hundreds of Italian stories were circulated in 
England and became the basis of many a drama. 



72 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 

The thought and imagination of England, thus expand- 
ing under the stimulus of the Renaissance, found many- 
conditions in the reign of Elizabeth which favored their 
expression in literature. 

In the two preceding reigns much of the national 
force had been spent in religious controversies. Edward 
VI. (i 547-1 553) had forced Protestantism upon a nation 
not, as a whole, fully prepared to accept 
futili° us Perse " it: ; Mary (1553-1558) with a religious zeal 
as pathetic as, in our eyes, it was cruel and 
mistaken, had striven to persecute the people back into 
Roman Catholicism. In Elizabeth's reign we pass out of 
the bitterness and confusion of this warfare of religions, 
into a period of comparative quiet. The religious and 
political difficulties which beset Elizabeth on her accession 
in 1558, slowly sank out of sight under herfirm and moder- 
ate rule. Patience and toleration did much to soften the 
violence of the .religious parties ; the fierce fires of mar- 
tyrdom, which had lit up the terrible reign of Mary, 
were cold, and the nation, relieved from pressing 
anxieties, was comparatively free to turn to other issues. 
The very year in which Shakespeare is supposed to have 
come up to London to seek his fortune (1587) saw the 
final removal of a threatened danger by the execution of 
Mary Queen of Scots. 

But the reign was more than a period of relief from 
past struggles or persecution ; it was marked by a rapid 
advance in national prosperity and by a wide-spread in- 
Prosperity of crease m the comforts and luxuries of life, 
the People. Among the people there were many causes 

of contentment. Improved methods of farming doubled 
the yield per acre ; the domestic manufacture of wool 
greatly increased, and homespun came into favor. In 



ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 73 

many little ways, by the introduction of chimneys, of 
feather beds, pillows, and the more general use of glass, 
the conveniences of living were greatly increased. The 
sea, as well as the land, yielded a large revenue. Not 
only did the English fishing boats crowd the Channel, but 
hardy sailors brought back cod from the Newfoundland 
banks, or tracked the whale in the vast solitudes of the 
polar seas. 

England was laying the foundations of her future com- 
mercial and maritime supremacy. Her trade increased 
with Flanders and with the ports of the Mediterranean, 
and her merchant ships pushed to Scandi- Growth of 
navia, Archangel, and Guinea. In 1566 Commerce - 
Sir Thomas Gresham built the Royal Exchange in Lon- 
don, a hall in which the merchants met as the Venitians 
in their Rialto. Toward the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, the famous East India Company was established. 

With the ease and wealth that sprung from this in- 
creasing prosperity, came that delight in beauty, that 
half-pagan pleasure in the splendid adornments of life, 
which characterize the Italian Renaissance. The Splendor 
Life, no longer shut within the heavy ma- of Life - 
sonry of the feudal castle, ran glittering in the open sun- 
shine. Stately villas were built, with long gable roofs, 
grotesque carvings, and shining oriels, and surrounded 
with the pleached walks, the terraces, the statuary, and 
the fountains of an Italian garden. 

The passion for color showed itself among the wealthier 
classes in a lavish magnificence and eccentricity of cos- 
tume. The young dandy went " perfumed 
like a milliner,"* and often affected the 
fashions of Italy as the Anglo-maniac of our own day 
apes those of England. In its luxury of delight in life 
and color, the nation bedecked itself 

* " King Henry IV.," act i. sc. 3. 



74 PERIOD OF 1TALIAX IXFLUEXCE. 

" With silken coats, and caps, and golden rings, 

With cufis, and ruffs," and farthingales, and things, 
With scarfs and fans, and double change of bravery, 
With amber bracelets, beads, and all that knavery."* 

Moralists and Puritans bitter'}' denounced the extrav- 
agance and absurdities of the rapidly changing fashions. 
" Except it were a dog in a doublet." writes an author 
of the time, " you shall not see any so disguised as are 
my countrymen of England. "+ But ridicule and reproof 
were alike powerless to check the nation's holiday mood. 
Men put off their more sober garments to rustle in silks 
and satins, to sparkle with jewels; they were gorgeous in 
laces and velvets, they glittered with chains and brooches 
of gold, they gladly suffered themselves to be tormented 
by huge ruffs, stiff with the newly discovered vanity of 
starch. 

Shakespeare, whom we cannot imagine over-precise, is 
fond of showing such fashionable vanities in an unfavor- 
able light, and from more than one passage we may sup- 
pose him to have felt an intense, country-bred dislike for 
painted faces and false hair. On the other hand, when 
we read his famous description of Cleopatra in her barge, 
we appreciate how all this glow of color appealed to and 
satisfied the imagination of the time.} The same spirit 
showed itself in the costly banquets, in the showy 
pageants or street processions, with their elaborate 
scenery and allegorical characters, in the revels like those 
with which Queen Elizabeth was received at Kenihvorth 
(1575'). in the spectacular entertainment of the mask, a 
performance in which poet, musician, and — as we should 
say — the stage manager, worked together to delight 

* " Taming of the Shrew," act iv. sc. 3. 

f Harrison's " Elizabethan England " (Camelot Series, p. 10S). 

% "' Antony and Cleopatra, '* act ii. sc. 2. 



ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 1$ 

mind, eye, and ear. Milton has this splendor in mind 
when he writes : 

" There let Hymen oft appear 
In saffron robe, with taper clear, 
In pomp, and feast, and revelry, 
With mask and antique pageantry, 
Such sights as youthful poets dream 
On summer eves by haunted stream." * 

But the Elizabethan passion for dress and ornament is 
but a surface indication of the immense delight in life 
which characterizes the time. If we would appreciate 
the vital spirit of this crowded and bewildering age, we 
must feel the rush of its superb and irrepres- Elizabethan 
sible ene # rgy, pouring itself out through e lg 
countless channels. England was like a youth first come 
to the full knowledge of his strength, rejoicing as a giant 
to run his course, and determined to do, to see, to know, 
to enjoy to the full. The fever of adventure burned in 
her veins ; Drake sailed round the world (i 577-1 580) ; the 
tiny ships of Hawkins, Frobisher, Gilbert, and the rest 
parted the distant waters of unplowed seas. The buc- 
caneers plundered and fought with the zest and un- 
wearied vigor of the Viking. When Sir Walter Raleigh 
was taken prisoner in 1603, he is said to have been 
decked with four thousand pounds' worth of jewels ; yet 
courtier and fine gentleman as he was, he could face peril, 
hunger, and privation, in the untracked solitudes of the 
New World. With an insatiable and many-sided capacity 
for life typical of his time, Raleigh wrote poetry, boarded 
Spanish galleons, explored the wilderness, and produced 
in his old age a huge History of the World. In their 
full confidence of power, men carried on vast literary 
undertakings, like Sidney's Arcadia, Drayton's Poly- 

*"L' Allegro." 



7 6 PERIOD OF I TALI AX IX FLU EX CE. 

olbion, or Spenser's Faerie Queene, the magnitude of 
which would have daunted a less vigorous generation, 
Nothing wearied, nothing- fatigued them ; like Raleigh, 
they could " toil terribly." The young Francis Bacon 
— lawyer, philosopher, and courtier — wrote to Cecil with 
an inimitable audacity : " I have taken all knowledge to 
be my province." 

And all this young life, with its varied spheres of ac- 
tion, was still further quickened by a deep national pride 
in the growing greatness of England, and by a feeling of 
chivalric loyalty to the Queen. Religious 

National Pride. . rr r 

dirierences gave way before a common bond 
of patriotism. The men that faced " the Great Armada " 
were united by a common hatred of Spain, a common de- 
votion to England and to her Queen. The destruction of 
this huge armament made every English heart beat with a 
new pride of country, that became a moving power in 
the literature of the time. We feel the exultant thrill of 
this triumph in those stirring words in Shakespeare's 
King John: 

" This England never did nor never shall 
Lie at the proud feet of a conqueror, 
But when it first did help to wound itself. 
Now these her princes are come home again, 
Come with three corners of the world in arms. 
And we shall shock them, naught shall make us rue, 
If England to herself do but rest true."* 

And the centre of this new nationality was the Queen. 
Capricious, vain, and fickle as Elizabeth was, she awak- 
ened a devoted loyalty denied to the gloomy and relent- 
t u . •* less Mary, or to the timorous and un- 

Loyalty to the J ■ 

Q ueen ' gainly James. She had a quick and 

practical sympathy with the new intellectual and literary 
activities of her time. The first regular tragedy was 

* " King John," act v. sc. 7. 



EDMUND SPENSER. 77 

produced before her, and her interest helped the develop- 
ment of the struggling drama. 

" The versatility and many-sidedness of her mind enabled her 
to understand every phase of the intellectual movement about 
her, and to fix by a sort of instinct on its highest represen- 
tative."* 

As we review the achievements of Elizabethan Eng- 
land, we can see that the same magnificent energy which 
makes England prosperous at home and triumphant upon 
the seas, is the motive power back of the 

. . - * .. Summary. 

greatest creative period ot her literature. 
Looking at this great time as a whole, we must see Eng- 
land as " a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a 
strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks 
— as an eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her 
undazzled eyes at the full midday beam. "f Elizabethan 
literature is but one outlet for this imperious energy ; it 
is 4;he new feeling for life that creates the drama as well 
as discovers kingdoms far away. This is indeed the Re- 
naissance — the re-birth. 

EDMUND SPENSER. 

Edmund Spenser was born in London about 1552. 
There is some dispute as to his parentage, but he appears 
to have belonged to a respectable Lancashire family. 
After attending the Merchant Taylor's school in London, 
he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, as a sizar, or 
free scholar, in 1569. His first published poems, transla- 
tions from Du Bellay and Petrarch, appeared in the same 
year in a poetical miscellany called The Theatre for 
Worldlings. The work is smooth and creditable, but 
the especial value of the poem is its indication of Spen- 
ser's early interest in the French and Italian literature. 

* Green's " History of the English People," ii. p. 319. 
f Milton's " Areopagitica." 



78 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

While at college Spenser became acquainted with 
Gabriel Harvey, who figures in the literary history of the 
time as a learned, if somewhat formal and narrow-minded 
critic, deeply interested in the development of English 
poetry. Spenser left Cambridge after taking his master's 
degree, in 1576, and spent two years in the north, prob- 
ably with his kinsfolk in Lancashire. Shortly before 
1579 he became acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney, the 
mirror and pattern of the English gentleman of the 
time, then a young man of about Spenser's age. Tradi- 
tion has it that Spenser wrote his Shepherd's Calendar 
during a stay at Penshurst, Sidney's country place. The 
poem received immediate recognition as a work which 
marked the coming of a new and original poet. It is an 
Eclogue, or pastoral poem, in twelve books, one for each 
month. Spenser weaves into its dialogue some of his 
recent country experiences, including his unsuccessful 
suit of a lady he calls " Rosalind." He asserts his Pur- 
itanism, condemns the laziness of the clergy, and pays 
the customary tribute to the vanity of the Queen. In 
Elizabeth's time the great avenue to success was through 
the royal favor, and Spenser tried to push his fortunes at 
court through his friend Sidney and the Earl of Leicester. 
Sidney was out of the Queen's good graces, and had left 
in disgust to weave the airy tissue of his Arcadia. 

Leicester had Spenser appointed secretary to Lord 
Grey, the new deputy to Ireland, and in 1580 the young 
poet left the brilliant England of Elizabeth, with its 
gathering intellectual forces, for a barbarous and rebel- 
lious colony. In this lawless and miserable country 
he spent the rest of his life, except for brief visits to 
England ; " banished," as he bitterly writes, " like wight 
forlorn, into that waste where he was quite forgot." 

Lord Grey was recalled in 1582, but Spenser remained 
in Dublin about §ix years longer as clerk in the Chancery 



EDMUND SPENSER. 79 

Court. We find an unintentional irony in the fact that 
the former incumbent, from whom Spenser purchased 
the post, a certain Ludovic Briskett, wished to "retire 
to the quietness of study." Spenser was rewarded for 
his services by a gift of the castle of Kilcolman, part of 
the forfeited estate of the Desmonds. There Sir Walter 
Raleigh found him 

11 Amongst the cooly shade 
Of the green alders of the Mullae's shore," * 

and heard from the poet's own lips the first three books 
of his masterpiece, the Faerie Queene. Raleigh, with 
great and generous admiration, prevailed upon Spenser 
to accompany him to London, where the first installment 
of the Faerie Queene appeared in the same year (1590). 
Spenser remained in London about a year, learning the 
miseries of a suitor for princes' favors, and then returned 
in bitter indignation to his provincial seclusion. Here, 
in 1594, he married Elizabeth Boyer, " an Irish country 
lass," and paid her a poet's tribute in his Amoretti, 
or love sonnets, and in the splendid Epitlialamion, or 
marriage hymn, a poem filled with a rich and noble 
music. Here also, besides writing certain minor poems, 
he completed six of the twelve books that were to make 
up the first part of the Faerie Queene. About 1595 
Spenser again visited London, and in the following 
year published his Prothalamion, or song before marriage. 
Apart from its poetical value, this poem has a personal 
interest. Through it we are able to determine Spenser's 
birthplace, for he speaks of London as 

" My most kindly nurse, 
That to me gave this life's first native source." 

From it, too, it w r ould appear that he was again an un- 
successful suitor at court. Spenser returned to Ireland 

* " Colin Clout Come Home Again," — read this entire passage, beginning 
line $0, 



80 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

in 1598, having been appointed sheriff of Cork. Shortly 
after, his house was burned and plundered in the rebellion 
of Tyrone. Spenser barely escaped with his wife and 
children. He soon afterward went to London as bearer 
of dispatches. Here he died a few weeks later (January 
16, 1599) In a lodging house, a ruined and broken-hearted 
man. Ben Jonson wrote : " He died for lack of bread in 
King Street, and refused twenty pieces sent to him by 
my Lord of Essex, saying that he had no time to spend 
them." 

Spenser stands alone, the one supremely great undra- 
matic poet of a play-writing time. In his youth he had, 
indeed, composed nine comedies, now lost, but the quality 
Spenser as a °f n * s genius was apart from the dramatic 
Poet- temper of his greatest poetical contempo- 

raries. With a wonderful richness and fluency of poetic 
utterance, with the painter's feeling for color, and the mu- 
sician's ear for melody, Spenser lacked the sense of humor, 
the firm grasp of actual life, indispensable to the success- 
ful dramatist. From one aspect, Spenser's work expresses 
the spirit and deals with the problems of his time. In 
the Faerie Qaeene, the struggle of the Church of England 
with the Church of Rome, a vital issue for Elizabeth and 
her people, is imaged by the opposing figures of the 
saintly Una and the foul and dissembling Duessa : what 
Spenser deemed the righteous severity of Lord Grey's 
Irish administration is symbolized by Artegal, the 
knightly personification of Justice. But while current 
events or questions are thus introduced under the thin 
veil of allegory, while from time to time we catch the 
more or less distorted image of some great contemporary, 
Mary Queen of Scots or Sir Philip Sidney, from another 
aspect the Faerie Queene impresses us as remote from the 
substantial world of fact, enveloped in an enchanted 
atmosphere peculiarly its own. In its visionary pages 



EDMUND SPENSER. 8 1 

Spenser revives a fading chivalry, clothing it in fantastic 
but beautiful hues, at a time when the author of Don 
Quixote was about to ridicule its decaying glories with 
his melancholy scorn. Yet unreal and luxurious as 
the Faerie Queene may seem, Spenser had in it a dis- 
tinctly practical and moral object. Under the mask of 
allegory he aimed to show the earthly warfare between 
good and evil, representing the contending virtues and 
vices by the different personages of the story. The 
general object of the poem was to " fashion a perfect 
gentleman," by showing the beauty of goodness and its 
final triumph. But this moral purpose, overlaid with lav- 
ish color and confused by minor or conflicting allegories, 
is often lost sight of by the reader ; sometimes, we are 
inclined to think, by the poet himself. We are rather 
led to enjoy without question the beauty which delights 
the eye, or the rhythmical undulations of a verse which 
satisfies the ear. Moral purpose and allegory are alike 
obscured by the intricaries of a story, which, as we 
advance, reminds us of a river scattering its divided forces 
through countless channels, until it ends choked in sand. 
But the imperishable charm of the poem is independent 
of its story or of its declared purpose. No poet before 
Spenser had called out such sweet and stately music 
from our English speech, and none had so captivated by 
an appeal to the pure sense of beauty. Spenser was a 
high-minded Englishman, a student of the ideal philoso- 
phy of Plato, with a touch of Puritan severity ; but he 
had, above all, the warm and beauty-loving temper of 
the Renaissance. In his solitary Kilcolman, amidst the 
insecurity, pillage, and misery of unhappy Ireland, he felt 
the full fascination of Italy, an alluring southern magic 
which to Ascham seemed like " the enchantments of 
the Circes." In the Faerie Queene, the half-pagan and 
gorgeous beauty of the Italian Renaissance finds its most 



82 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE, 

perfect expression in English poetry, modified and 

restrained by Spenser's serenity and spirituality and by 

his English conscience. With him we are not, as with 

Chaucer, admitted to the mirth and jolly fellowship of 

the common highway ; rather, like Tennyson's Lady 

of Shalott in her high tower, we see in a glass only the 

passing reflection of knight and page. There are moods 

when this rests and satisfies ; then again we look down 

to Camelot at life itself, and the mirror cracks from side 

to side. 

PROTHALAMION. 

I. 

Calme was the day, and through the trembling ayre 

Sweete breathing Zephyrus did softly play, 

A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay 

Hot Titans beanies, which then did glyster fayre ; 

When I, whom sullein care, 

Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay 

In Princes Court, and expectation vayne 

Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away, 

Like empty shaddowes, did afflict my brayne, 

Walkt forth to ease my payne 

Along the shoare of silver streaming Themmes ; 

Whose rutty Bancke, the which his River hemmes, 

Was paynted all with variable flowers, 

And all the meades adorned with daintie gemmes, 

Fit to decke maydens bowres, 

And crowne their Paramours 

Against the Brydale day, which is not long : 

Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 
II. 
There, in a Meadow, by the River's side, 
A Flocke of Nymphes I chaunced to espy, 
All lovely Daughters of the Flood thereby, 
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde, 
As each had bene a Bryde ; 
And each one had a little wicker basket, 
Made of fine twigs, entrayled curiously, 
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket, 



PROTHALAMION. 83 

And with fine fingers cropt full feateously 

The tender stalkes on hye. 

Of every sort, which in that Meadow grew, 

They gathered some ; the Violet, pallid blew, 

The little Dazie that at evening closes, 

The virgin Lillie, and the Primrose trew, 

With store of vermeil Roses, 

Te deck their Bridegroomes posies 

Against the Brydale day, which was not long : 

Sweet Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song, 
ill. 
With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe 
Come softly swimming downe along the Lee ; 
Two fairer Birds I yet did never see : 
The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew, 
Did never whiter shew, 

Nor Jove himselfe, when he a Swan would be 
For love of Leda, whiter did appeare ; 
Yet Leda was, they say, as white as he, 
Yet not so white as these, nor nothing neare : 
So purely white they were, 

That even the gentle streame, the which them bare, 
Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowes spare 
To wet their silken feathers, least they might 
Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre, 
And marre their beauties bright, 
That shone as heaven's light, 
Against their Brydale day, which was not long : 

Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 

IV. 

Eftsoones the Nymphes, which now had Flowers their fill, 

Ran all in haste to see that silver brood, 

As they came floating on the christal Flood ; 

Whom when they sawe, they stood amazed still, 

Their wondering eyes to fill : 

Them seem'd they never saw a sight so fayre, 

Of Fowles, so lovely, that they sure did deeme 

Them heavenly borne, or to be that same payre 

Which through the Skie draw Venus silver teeme ; 

For sure they did not seeme 

To be begot of any earthly Seede. 



84 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

But rather Angels, or of Angels breede : 

Yet were they bred of Somers-heat, they say, 

In sweetest Season, when each flower and weede 

The earth did fresh aray ; 

So fresh they seem'd as day, 

Even as their Brydale day, which was not long : 

Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song, 
v. 
Then forth they all out of their baskets drew 
Great store of Flowers, the honour of the field, 
That to the sense did fragrant odours yield, 
All which upon those goodly Birds they threw, 
And all the Waves did strew, 
That like old Peneus Waters they did seeme, 
When downe along by pleasant Tempes shore, 
Scattered w T ith flowres, through Thessaly they streeme, 
That they appeare, through Lillies plenteous store, 
Like a Brydes chamber flore. 

Two of those Nymphes, meane while, two GarlaKBs bound 
Of freshest Flowres which in that Mead they found, 
The which presenting all in trim array, 
Their snowie foreheads therewithall they crown 'd, 
Whilst ope did sing this Lay, 
Prepar'd against that day, 
Against their Brydale day, which was not long : 

Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 

VI. 

" Ye gentle Birdes, the world's faire ornament, 
And heavens glorie, whom this happie hower 
Doth leade unto your lovers blissfull bower, 
Joy may you have, and gentle hearts content 
Of your loves couplement ! 
And let faire Venus, that is Oueene of love, 
With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you. smile, 
Whose smile, they say, hath vertue to remove 
All loves dislike, and friendships faultie guile 
Forever to assoile. 

Let endlesse Peace your steadfast hearts accord, 
And blessed Plentie wait upon you(r) bord ; 
And let your bed with pleasures chast abound, 
That fruitfull issue may to you afford, 



PROTHALAMION. 85 

Which may your foes confound, 

And make your joyes redound 

Upon your Brydale day, which is not long: 

Sweete Themmes ! runne softlie, till I end my song." 

VII. 

So ended she ; and all the rest around 
To her redoubled that her undersong, 
Which said, their bridale daye should not be long : 
And gentle Eccho, from the neighbor ground 
Their accents did resound. 
So forth those joyous Birdes did passe along 
Adovvne the Lee, that to them murmurde low, 
As he would speake, but that he lackt a tong, 
Yet did by signes his glad affection show, 
Making his streame run slow : 
And all the foule which in his flood did dwell 
Gan flock about these twaine, that did excell 
The rest, so far as Cynthia doth shend 
The lesser starres. So they, enranged well, 
Did on those two attend, 
And their best service lend 

Against their wedding day, which was not long : 
Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 

VIII. 

At length they all to mery London came, 

To mery London, my most kyndly Nurse, 

That to me gave this Lifes first native sourse, 

Though from another place I take my name, 

An house of auncient fame. 

There when they came, whereas those bricky towres 

The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ryde, 

Where now the studious Lawyers have their bowers: 

There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde, 

Till they decayd through pride ; 

Next whereunto there standes a stately place, 

Where oft I gay n ed giftes and goodly grace 

Of that great Lord, which therein wont to dwell ; 

Whose want too well now feels my freendles case : 

But ah ! here fits not w T ell 

Olde woes, but joyes, to tell 



86 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Against the Brydale daye, which is not long : 

Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 

IX. 

Yet therein now doth lodge a noble Peer, 
Great Englands glory, and the Worlds wide wonder, 
Whose dreadfull name late through all Spaine did thunder, 
And Hercules two pillors standing neere 
Did make to quake and feare. 
Faire branch of Honour, flower of Chevalrie ! 
That fillest England with thy triumphes fame, 
Joy have thou of thy noble victorie, 
And endlesse happinesse of thine owne name 
That promiseth the same. 

That through thy prowesse, and victorious armes, 
Thy country may be freed from forraine harmes, 
And great Elisaes glorious name may ring 
Through al the world, fil'd with thy wide alarmes, 
Which some brave muse may sing 
To ages following, 

Upon the Brydale day, which is not long 
Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 

x. 

From those high Towers this noble Lord issuing,. 
Like radiant Hesper, when his golden hayre 
In th' Ocean billowes he hath bathed fayre, 
Descended to the Rivers open vewing, 
With a great traine ensuing. 
Above the rest were goodly to bee seene 
Two gentle Knights of lovely face and feature, 
Beseeming well the bower of any Queene, 
With gifts of wit, and ornaments of nature, 
Fit for so goodly stature, 

That like the Twins of Jove they seemed in sight, 
Which decke the Bauldricke of the Heavens bright : 
They two, forth pacing to the Rivers side, 
Receiv'd those two faire Brides, their Loves delight ; 
Which at th' appointed tyde, 
Each one did make his Bryde 
Against their Brydale day, which is not long : 
Sweete Themmes ! runne softly, till I end my song. 



THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA. 87 

THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE. 

Shakespeare is so much a part of our English civiliza- 
tion, we accept his gift to us so easily, and are so familiar 
with his greatness, that it is well to remind The EHza . 
ourselves of his place as the King of all bethan Drama - 
literature. Thomas Carlyle wrote of him : " I think the 
best judgment, not of this country only, but of Europe at 
large, is pointing to the conclusion that Shakespeare is the 
chief of all poets hitherto ; the greatest intellect who, in 
our recorded world, has left a record of himself in the way 
of literature ; " * and Emerson says, speaking for our own 
branch of the English people : " Of all books dependent 
upon their intrinsic excellence, Shakespeare is the one 
book of the world. . . Out of the circle of religious 
books, I set Shakespeare as the one unparalleled mind."f 
Criticism cannot explain how, or why, the country-bred 
son of a Warwickshire wool-dealer should have possessed 
this supreme gift ; it is the miracle of genius ; but we can 
partly understand how surrounding conditions favored 
the expression of Shakespeare's genius through a dra- 
matic form. It is beyond our philosophy to analyze the 
nature of the mysterious force shut within a seed, 
although we may appreciate the conditions which help 
its development. Let us look at Shakespeare in the 
light of some of those surroundings in which his genius 
worked. 

Shakespeare did not create that dramatic era of which 
he was the greatest outcome ; he availed himself of 
it. He lived in the midst of one of the world's few 
great dramatic periods — a neriod equaled only, if equaled 
at all, by the greatest epoch in the drama of Greece. 
The Elizabethan drama was more than a national amuse- 

* " Heroes and Hero Worship ; The Hero as a Poet." 
f "Representative Men ; Shakespeare." 



88 PERIOD OF ITALIAN IXFLUENCE. 

ment. More fully than any other form of literary or 
artistic expression, it interpreted and satisfied the crav- 
ing of the time for vigorous life and action. 

Shakespeare ,,., , , , , . n 

PartofaDra- i he theatre was then, as in classic Greece, 

matic Period. . r • i 

a national force, and a means of national 
education. An immense popular impulse was back of 
the Elizabethan dramatist. The wooden play-houses 
were daily filled with turbulent crowds, and scores of 
playwrights were busy supplying the insatiable public 
with countless dramas. Shakespeare was sustained by a 
hearty, if not always discriminating, appreciation ; he 
was stimulated by the fellowship, or rivalry, of a host 
of competitors. 

At first sight, this dramatic activity may seem to have 

sprung suddenly into being in answer to a new popular 

demand. The first regular tragedy was 

The Prepara- . , . 

tionfortheEiiz- about the time of Shakespeare's birth, and he 

abethan Drama. 

was twelve years old before the first reg- 
ularly licensed theatre was erected in England (1576). 

But the passion for life and action did not create the 
Elizabethan drama out of nothing; it rather transformed 
and adapted to its use a drama which had been estab- 
lished for centuries. This drama, brought into England 
sometime after the Norman Conquest, had grown out of 
the need which the Church felt for some means of popular 
religious instruction. Short scenes, or plays, illustrating 
some legend of the saints, or Bible story, were acted first 
by the clergy, and later by the professional players, or 
by the Guilds. These ^Miracle plays, as they were called, 
because they dealt with wonderful, or supernatural, sub- 
jects, were popular in England during the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, and continued to be acted in Shake- 
speare's time. There were other kinds of plays, of which 
we need not speak particularly — the Moral play, an 
allegorical performance, intended to teach some moral 



THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE. 89 

lesson, and the Interlude, a short scene, or dialogue, often 
played between {inter ludd) the courses at feasts. The 
earliest Moral play extant dates from the time of Henry 
VI., but mention is made of some still earlier. Inter- 
ludes were composed by John Heywood, in Henry VIII. \s 
reign, and produced at court. The introduction of his- 
torical characters among the allegorical personages of the 
morality play — Riches, Death, Folly, and the like — 
was an important step towards the regular historical 
drama. * These early plays, although full of interest for 
the student, have, as a rule, but little poetic merit. To 
our modern eyes, they often seem irreverent, and lacking 
in dignity, but they pleased and instructed a simple- 
minded and illiterate audience ; they cultivated and kept 
alive a taste for acting, and so prepared the way for a 
dramatic development under the re-creating touch of the 
New Learning. 

In taking the further step from the Interlude to the 
more regular dramatic forms, England was helped by the 
Revival of classical Learning and by the example of Italy. 
Her first regular comedy, the Ralph Roister 

. rVr.fi tt 11 The Beginning 

DoiSter Of Nicholas Udall, 155 I, was Writ- of Regular Dra- 
ma. 

ten in imitation of the Latin comic drama- 
tist, Plautus ; her first tragedy, the Gorbnduc, or Ferrex 
and Porrex, of Sackville and Norton, while it dealt with 
a subject in the legendary history of England, followed 
the style of the Latin tragic poet Seneca. The num- 
erous translations from the latter writer f are a proof of 
his influence and popularity. But the forces creating a 

* Bale's " King Johan " is one of the earliest examples of this, but it was 
probably not printed until 1538, and had little influence. Another early- 
play is the *' Conflict of Conscience." 

f Between 1559 an ^ I 5 ^, five F h authors applied themselves to the 
task of translating Seneca. Ten of his plays collected and printed together 
in 1 581 remain a monument of the English poets' zeal in studying the Roman 
pedagogue. 



90 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

drama in England were too strong and original to make 
it a mere classic imitation ; it might borrow from Rome 
or Italy, but it had vitality and character of its own. 

Among the native forces thus shaping a new drama 
out of mediaeval Miracle plays or classic adaptations, was 
the intense patriotic pride which, in the days of the 
influence of Armada, stirred England to more wide- 
qVow*? h of s P rea d interest in her history, and to a 
Drama. warmer pleasure in the image of her triumphs. 

The Chronicle Histories of England were ransacked for 
subjects, and her past reviewed in dramas which were 
the forerunners of Shakespeare's great series of English 
historical plays. Among the early works of this class 
are, The Famous Victories- of Henry V., acted before 1588, 
Sir Thomas More, about 1590, The Troublesome Raign 
of King John, printed in 1 591, and The New Chronicle 
History of King Leir and his three daughters, Gonerill, 
Ragan, and Cordelia, acted two years later (1593). The 
English historical drama was thus a native growth, 
brought into being by a genuine national impulse. It 
helps us to estimate the motive power of this impulse if 
we turn a moment from the drama to other forms of 
literature. 

Patriotism while thus molding the drama was giving 
new life to history and verse. Learned men like Stowe, 
Harrison, and Hollingshead, were embodying in prose 
painstaking researches into English history and an- 
tiquities. Hollingshead and Harrison's Description and 
History of England, Scotland and Ireland (first edition, 
1 577)> a good example of works of this class, supplied 
material to Shakespeare for his historical plays. In the 
same way an enormous quantity of verse draws its inspi- 
ration from England and her history. William Warner 
set forth the history of England from the Deluge to the 
time of Elizabeth in a much-read poem of ten thousand 



THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE. 91 

lines {Albion s England, 1586); Samuel Daniel dealt with 
English history in his Barons Wars (1596), a poem on 
the reign of Edward II., and in his Heroical Epistles 
(1598): while later Michael Drayton wrote his splendid 
ballad The Battle of Agincoart and The Polyolbion (161 3), 
" my strange herculean toil " he appropriately calls it, a 
poetical description of England in thirty books containing 
about one hundred thousand lines. All these writers 
were bidding the people to 

" Look on England, 
The Empress of the European Isles. 
The mistress of the ocean, her navies 
Putting a girdle round about the world." * 

From the historical plays already named we pass easily 
to a higher order of drama in the Edward II., of Chris- 
topher Marlowe, Shakespeare's great predecessor, until 
we reach the climax of England's patriotic drama in the 
work of Shakespeare himself. 

About 1580, we find the drama rapidly taking form in 
London through the work of a group of rising dramatists, 
many of whom brought from the universities a tincture 
of the new learning. Prominent among Shakespeare's 

these Were John Lyly (b. 1554, d. l6o6), the Predecessors. 

Euphuist, who produced a play before 1 584 ; Thomas Kyd 
(d. about 1595), whose Spanish tragedy was written in a 
ranting and extravagant style much ridiculed by Shake- 
speare and the later dramatists ; George Peele (b. about 
1552, d. about 1597), whose chronicle of Edward I. (1593) 
holds an important place in the development of the his- 
torical drama ; Robert Greene (b. 1560, d. 1592) who, like 
many of his fellow playwrights, led a wild and dissipated 
life, friendless, except in a few ale houses. In his Hon- 
orable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Greene 
gives some charming scenes of English country life. The 
* Massinger, " The Maid of Honor," act i. sc. I. 



9 2 PERIOD OF IT A LI A AT I NFL UENCE. 

name of this unhappy writer will always be associated 
with his spiteful and jealous reference to Shakespeare as 
an " upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with 
his tiger s heart wrapped in a player s hyde, supposes he is 
as able to bombast out a blanke-verseas the best of you ; 
and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is, in his own 
conceyt, the only ' Shake-scene ' in a countrey."* But, 
greater than all these in the tragic intensity of his genius 
and the swelling majesty of his " mighty line," was Chris- 
topher Marlowe (b. 1564, d. 1593), the immediate fore- 
runner of Shakespeare. When Marlowe began to write, 
the form of the English drama was still unsettled. 
Under the influence of its classic models, tragedy was in- 
clined to be stiff, stilted, and formal ; while in contrast 
with the work of the scholarly and somewhat artificial 
writers, there were rude, popular interludes in jingling 
rhymes, full of rough, clownish tricks and jests, and with- 
out unity and proportion. Marlowe's fine touch did 
much to reduce this confusion to order. His verse is the 
finest before Shakespeare, and stormy and riotous as was 
his life, his work shows the true artist's unselfish devotion 
to a high and beautiful ideal. \ Marlowe was a son of a 
Canterbury shoemaker, and was born two months before 
Shakespeare. He graduated at Cambridge, and came to 
London in 1581 to plunge into the vortex of reckless and 
lawless life that circled round the theatre. Passionate, 
unquiet, ambitious, Marlowe is spoken of as an atheist 
and a blasphemer. Before he is thirty he is stabbed 
with his own dagger in a low tavern at Deptford. The 
touch of the unknown, which he thirsted for like his own 
Faustus, stops him in the midst of his doubts, his passion- 
ate longings, his defiance, his love-making, and his fame, 
— and at length he is quiet. 

*In his pamphlet, a kind of dying confession, " Greene's Groatsworth of 
Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance." 



THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE. 93 

Marlowe's earliest play (Tamburlaine ', First Part 
before 1587, Second Part 1590) portrays the insatiable 
thirst for power, the spirit of the typical conqueror long- 
ing for "the sweet fruition of an earthly crown." Another 
of Marlowe's tragedies, The Jew of Malta, is generally 
thought to have furnished Shakespeare with some hints 
for his Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Ed- 
ward II. drew more firmly the lines of the English 
historical drama, while Dr. Fanstns, with its magnifi- 
cent bursts of poetry, and the accumulating terror of its 
tragic close, is full of that overmastering longing for the 
unattainable, which seems to have been the strongest 
characteristic of Marlowe's restless nature. In these 
famous lines from Tamburlaine, Marlowe himself seems 
to speak to us : 

" Nature, that framed us of four elements 
Warring within our breast for regiment, 
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds : 
Our souls whose faculties can comprehend 
The wondrous architecture of the world, 
And measure every wandering planet's course, 
Still climbing after knowledge infinite, 
And always moving as the restless spheres, 
Will us to wear ourselves and never rest." 

Plays were acted in England long before any theatres 
were built. The Miracle plays had been produced on 
temporary scaffolds, or on a two-storied erection, some- 
thing like a huge doll's house on wheels, called a pageant. 
The Interludes or the early dramas were often played be- 
fore the Queen, or before some great noble, 

, r , r , 1 , ,1 The Theatre. 

on a platform at one end of the huge halls, 
perhaps at a great banquet or festival. But plays were 
a popular pastime also, performed in the open air in the 
court-yards of the Inns ; and these square Inn-yards, over- 
looked by the galleries or balconies which ran around the 



94 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFL UENCE. 

inclosing wails of the Inn, are supposed to have furnished 
the model for the regular theatres. The growing delight 

in play-going seems to have produced a general demand 
for more permanent and commodious accommodations. 
One building regularly set apart for the performance of 
plays is known to have been in use before i~ : ~5. In the 
same year the " Black-friars Theatre "was opened, the 
first theatre regularly licensed. From this time the play 
houses rapidly increased, and -."'hen Shakespeare came up 
to London ''about 1587'' a number were in active oper- 
ation. Shakespeare's own theatre. "The Globe," built 
1593, lay across the Thames from London in the " Bank- 
side," a part of Southwark, close to the river. Other 
famous theatres of the day were " The Fortune," " The 
Rose," and "'The Curtain," at the last of which Marlowe 
is known to have acted. Ti:e theatres were of two 
kinds, public and private. The hrst were large six-sided 
wooden buildings, roofed over above the stage and 
thatched, the pit or yard being without shelter from 
the sun or rain. Galleries ran round the -.vails, as in the 
Inn-yards. The stage projected into the pit, which was 
alive with disorderly crowds who stood on the bare 
ground, joking, fighting, or shoving to gain the best 
places.* There was little attempt at scenery. In the 
old plays we find such significant stage directions as these : 
" Exit Venus : or. if you can conveniently, let a chair 
come down from the top of the stage and draw her up."~ 
In more than one place through the Choruses of Henry 
V. Shakespeare seems to be impatient of the slender re- 
sources of his stage-setting, as when he asks : 

" Can this cock-pit hold 
The vast)- fields of France ? or may we cram 

* See Shakespeare's " Henry VIII.," act iii. sc. 3. 

f In Green's " Alphonsus " — quoted by Collier. " Annals :: the Stage," 
vol. iii, p. 357- 



THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE SHAKESPEARE. 95 

Within this wooden O, the very casques, 
That did affright the air at Agincourt ? "* 

And in the wonderful description that precedes the bat- 
tle of Agincourt, he complains ; 

" And so our scene must to the battle fly ; 
Where (O for pity) we shall much disgrace — 
With four or five most vile and ragged foils, 
Right ill-disposed, in brawl ridiculous, — 
The name of Agincourt ; yet sit and see, 
Judging true things by what these mockeries be."t 

The private theatres were smaller and more comfortable 
than the public. They had seats in the pit and were 
entirely under roof. Performances were given by candle 
or torch light, and the audiences were usually more se- 
lect. The following description of Mr. Symonds gives 
us a vivid notion of the performance of a play in Shake- 
speare's time : 

" Let us imagine that the red-lettered play-bill of a new 
tragedy has been hung out beneath the picture of Dame For- 
tune [/. e., at " The Fortune " theatre, the great rival of Shake- 
speare's theatre, " The Globe "] ; the flag is flying from the roof, 
the drums have beaten and the trumpets are sounding for the 
second time. It is three o'clock upon an afternoon of summer. 
We pass through the great door, ascend some steps, take our 
key from the pocket of our trunk-hose and let ourselves into our 
private room upon the first or lowest tier. We find ourselves 
in a low, square building, not unlike a circus ; smelling of 
sawdust and the breath of people. The yard below is crowded 
with simpering mechanics and prentices in greasy leathern 
jerkins, servants in blue frieze with their masters' badges on 
their shoulders, boys and grooms elbowing each other for bare 
standing ground and passing jests on their neighbors. Five 
or six young men are already seated before the curtain playing 

* Chorus to " Henry V.," act i, 
f Chorus to act iv. 



96 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

cards and cracking nuts to .while away the time. A boy goes 
up and down among them offering various qualities of tobacco 
for sale and furnishing lights for the smokers. The stage it- 
self is strown with rushes ; and from the jutting tiled roof of 
the shadow supported by a couple of stout wooden pillars, 
carved with satyrs at the top, hangs a curtain of tawny-colored 
silk. This is drawn when the trumpets have sounded for the 
third time and an actor in a black velvet mantle with a crown 
of bays upon his flowing wig. struts forward, bowing to the 
audience. He is the Prologue. 

"The prologue ends. 

"The first act now begins. There is nothing but the rudest 
scenery ; a battlemented city wall behind the stage, with a 
placard hung out upon it, indicating that the scene is Rome. 
As trie play proceeds this figure of a town makes way for some 
wooden rocks and a couple of trees, to signify the Hyrcanian 
forest. A damsel wanders alone in the woods, lamenting her 
sad case. Suddenly a card-board dragon is thrust from the 
sides upon the stage and she takes to flight. The first act 
closes with a speech from an old gentleman, clothed in antique 
robes, whose white beard flows down upon his chest. He is 
the Chorus. . . . The show concludes with a prayer for the 
Queen's Majesty uttered by the actors on their knees." * 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

There is on Henley Street, in Stratford-on-Avon, War- 
wickshire, an old house, with gabled roof and low-ceil- 
inged rooms, which every year is made the object of 
thousands of pilgrimages. Here William 

His Youth. r s s 

Shakespeare was born, on or about the 22a 
day of April. 1564. His father. John Shakespeare, the 
son of a small farmer in the neighboring village of Snit- 
terfield, added to his regular business of glover, sundry 7 
dealings in wool, corn, and hides, and possibly the occu- 

* "Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama," by J. A. 
Symonds. p. 2S9. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 97 

pation of butcher. His mother, Mary Arden, the daughter 
of a wealthy farmer near Stratford, was connected with 
one of the oldest and most distinguished families in 
Warwickshire. The Ardens came of both Norman and 
Saxon blood, and thus represented "the two great race- 
elements that have gone to the making of the typical 
modern Englishman." * The influences about Shake- 
speare's youth were such as growing genius instinctively 
appropriates to its use. Then, as now, Warwickshire was 
full of that abundant and peaceful beauty which has come 
to represent for us the ideal English landscape. In 
Shakespeare's day its northern part was overgrown by the 
great forest of Arden, a bit of primeval woodland like 
that which we enter in As You Like It; while south- 
ward of the river Avon, which runs diagonally across the 
county, stretched an open region of fertile farm land. 
Here were warm, sunny slopes, gay with those wild- 
flowers that bloom forever for the world in Shakespeare's 
verse; low-lying pastures, where meditative cows stand 
knee-deep in grass, and through which wind the brim- 
ming waters of slow-flowing and tranquil streams. Strat- 
ford lies in this more southern portion ; but in Shake- 
speare's day the forest of Arden reached to within an easy 
distance of it for an active youth. Near his native town 
the young Shakespeare could loiter along country lanes, 
past hawthorn hedge-rows or orchards white with May, 
coming now and then on some isolated farmhouse or on 
the cluster of thatched cottages which marked a tiny 
village. There was Snitterfield, where he must have 
gone to visit his grandfather; Shottery, where he wooed 
and won Anne Hathaway. There, in the midst of this 
rich midland scenery, was his own Stratford ; with its low 
wood and plaster houses and straggling streets, its mas- 

* Vide article on " Shakespeare," by J. Spencer Baynes, in Ency. Brit., 
ninth ed. 



98 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

sive grammar school, where, as a boy, he conned his 
Lilly's Latin grammar. A little apart, by the glassy 
Avon, stood Old Trinity Church, its lofty spire rising 
above the surrounding elms. There is abundant evi- 
dence that Shakespeare loved Warwickshire with a depth 
of attachment that nothing could alter. These early 
surroundings entered into and became a permanent part 
of his life and genius, and his works are full of country 
sights and sounds. He shows us rural England in such 
scenes as that of the sheep-shearing in The Winter s 
Tale ; he contrasts the free woodland with the court in 
As You Like It ; he defines for us the essence of the 
ideal shepherd's life,* and in many a song, written to 
be sung in crowded London theatres, his imagination 
escapes to the fields and flowers of his native Warwick- 
shire. 

And Shakespeare's Warwickshire added to natural 
beauty the charm of local legend and the traditions of a 
splendid past. Within easy reach of Stratford lay War- 
wick, with its fine old castle, once the home of the great 
King-maker of 'the Wars of the Roses. The whole region 
was bound by tradition and association to that great civil 
strife which is one of the chief themes of Shakespeare's 
plays on English history. Near by was Kenilworth, the 
castle of Elizabeth's favorite, the Earl of Leicester, where 
the Queen was received (1575) with those magnificent 
revels which the boy Shakespeare may have witnessed. 
Traveling companies of players seem to have visited 
Stratford during Shakespeare's early years, whose perfor- 
mances he doubtless witnessed. He may even have 
gazed at the wonders oi a Miracle play at Coventry, a town 
some twenty miles distant, where these plays were fre- 
quently produced by the Guilds. 

Besides all that he gained from such surroundings and 
* Lines beginning " To sit upon a hill," 3 "'' Henry VI.," act ii. sc. 5. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 99 

experiences, Shakespeare had received some instruction at 
the town grammar school. Here he acquired, or began 
to acquire, what his learned and somewhat 

, . - ,, , • -r» t 111 School. 

pedantic fellow-dramatist, Ben Jonson, called 
his " small Latin and less Greek," however much that may 
have been. In 1 578 John Shakespeare, who had been pros- 
perous and respected, began to lose money, and it is gener- 
ally supposed that, in consequence, Shakespeare was 
taken from school and put to some employment. We 
are left to conjecture concerning these years of his life ; 
but we know that in 1582 he married Ann Hathaway, a 
woman eight years older than himself. A few years later, 
about 1585 to 1587, Shakespeare left Stratford and went 
up to London, as so many youthful adventurers are doing 
and have done, to seek his fortune. If we choose to be- 
lieve a story which there seems no sufficient cause for 
entirely disregarding, the immediate reason for this step 
was Shakespeare's quarrel with a neighboring landed pro- 
prietor, Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote Hall. Shake- 
speare is said to have been brought before this gentleman 
for deer stealing. " For this," says the original authority 
for the story, " he was prosecuted by that gentleman 
(Lucy), as he thought somewhat too severely ; and, in 
order to revenge the ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him. 
And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be 
lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter, that it re- 
doubled the prosecution against him, to that degree that 
he was obliged to leave his business and family in War- 
wickshire for some time and shelter himself in London."* 
This story is probably not without some foundation ; but 
in any case, Shakespeare's establishment in London is 
exactly what his circumstances would lead us to expect. 
In 1585, he had a wife and two children to support, his 
father's money affairs had gone from bad to worse, and 
* Nicholas Rowe, " Life of Shakespeare," 



ioo PERIOD OF ITALIAN' INFLUENCE. 

Shakespeare, strong as we may imagine in the hopes and 
confidence of youth and genius, had every reason to feel 
provincial Stratford too cramped for his powers. 

"' The spirit of a youth 
That means to be of note, begins betimes."* 

In addition to all this, Tames and Richard Burbage, 
two famous actors in the company with which Shake- 
speare became connected, are supposed to have been 
Warwickshire men. If this were the case, Shakespeare 
may have been encouraged by the prospect of their 
assistance. 

When Shakespeare reached London ('1587 ?) the drama 
was rapidly gaining in popular favor ; clever young play- 
wrights were giving it form, and Marlowe had recently 
■i. oV -«— — produced his Tamburlaine. We know noth- 
in London, j n g Q { Shakespeare's life during his first few 

years in London. It is supposed that he studied French 
and Italian under John Florio. a noted teacher of that 
time. There is a story that he was first employed at a 
theatre in holding the horses of those who rode to the 
play, and that he had a number of boys to assist him. 
This, however, is generally distrusted. We do know 
that Shakespeare made a place for himself among the 
crowd of struggling dramatists, arousing the envy of 
Greene by his rapid advance in favor; and that by 1592 
he was established as a successful actor and author. In 
some way he seems to have commended himself to the 
young Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his 
first poem, the Venus and Adonis, in 1593. Shakespeare 
seems to have begun his work as a dramatist, by adapt- 
ing and partially re-writing old plays. Titus Andronicus, 
a coarse and brutal tragedy, was probably one of the 
plays thus touched up by Shakespeare .in his prentice 

* "Antony and Cleopatra." act iv, sc. 4. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. IOI 

period. His arrangement of Henry VI (Part I.) was 
brought out in 1592, and seems to have done much to 
bring him into notice. Among these earlier plays (writ- 
ten before 1598) were The Comedy of Errors, in which 
Shakespeare joins the imitators of Plautus ; The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labor Lost, into which 
many characteristic features of the Italian comedy were 
introduced ; and thus we see that Shakespeare, like the 
other dramatists of his time, turned at the very outset to 
classic models and contemporary Italy. Prof. Dowden 
points out that certain characters and situations in this 
last-mentioned play were used again in a modified form 
in the later Italian study, The Merchant of Venice. The 
poetic fantasie of The Midsummer Night's Dream also 
belongs to this period. But Shakespeare, also, shared in 
the intense patriotism of the time ; in 1593 he produced 
Richard II, and the other plays of his great historical 
series followed in rapid succession. At Christmas of 
this year Shakespeare is known to have acted with Bur- 
bage and the other members of the Lord Chamberlain's 
company before Queen Elizabeth. Everything indicates 
that, so far as his worldly affairs were concerned, Shake- 
speare steadily prospered. In these active and hard- 
working years, he grew in fortune as well as in reputation ; 
he showed himself practical and capable, a man of busi- 
ness as well as a transcendent genius, and, by his charac- 
ter, he won the love and respect of his fellows. By 1597 
he was able to buy a home for himself in his beloved Strat- 
ford. In 1 599 he was one of the proprietors of the " Globe 
Theatre," built in that year. In 1606 a further purchase 
of one hundred and seven acres of land at Stratford is 
made by William Shakespeare, Gentleman. Thus, while 
he is adding to the treasures of the world's literature, the 
thoughts and ambitions of this country-bred Shakespeare 
seem to return and centre about the Stratford of his youth. 



102 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Up to this time, Shakespeare's success had been in 
comedy and in the historical drama. He had, indeed, 
written Romeo and Juliet, that rapturous and roman- 
tic tragedy of ill-fated love, and, in scattered pass- 
ages, had given hints of his power to sound the 
depths of yet profounder passion. In 1601, he began, in 
Julius Ccesar, the great series of plays which rank him 
among the supreme tragic poets of the world. In play 
after play, he now turns from the humorous and gayer 
side of life, to face its most terrible questions, to reveal 
to us the very depths of human weakness, agony, and 
crime. Some think that these great tragedies were 
written out of the suffering and bitterness of Shake- 
speare's own experience ; that, through the loss or treach- 
ery of friends, or some other personal sorrow, life at this 
time grew dark and difficult for him. Whatever griefs 
gave him this insight, it is certain that he somehow gained 
the knowledge for which even genius must pay the price of 
suffering. Shakespeare exhibits in the plays of this period 
a full understanding of the darkest aspects of life. Here 
is shown us sin, the hideous ulcer at the heart of life, 
poisoning its very source, degrading souls, and bringing 
with it a train of miseries which confound alike the 
innocent and the guilty. 

In Macbeth we are present at the ruin of a soul, stand- 
ing irresolute at the brink of the first crime and then 
hurrying recklessly from guilt to guilt ; in Othello we 
see the helplessness of a " noble nature " in the hands of 
fiendish ingenuity and malice; Ophelia, the " fair rose of 
May," and Hamlet, perish with the guilty King and 
Queen; the outcast Lear, " more sinned against than 
sinning," and the spotless Cordelia fall victims to a 
monstrous wickedness. 

" Not the first 
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst." 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 1 03 

To Chaucer's shrewd eye and sunny good humor, 
Shakespeare added the sublime depth and earnestness of a 
far rarer and richer nature. If he was tolerant, like 
Chaucer, it was not because he was capable of an easy 
indifference, or " peyned him not eche crokked to re- 
dresse "; it was because, knowing the worst of life, he 
could yet accept it with cheerfulness and hope. For 
Shakespeare always shows us that high endeavors, great- 
ness, and innocence, cannot really fail so long as they 
remain true to themselves, because they are their own 
exceeding great reward. It is enough that Brutus was 
" the noblest Roman of them all," though he lie dead for 
a lost cause under the gaze of the conquering Octavius. 
Worldly success may mean spiritual ruin ; worldly ruin 
spiritual success. Shakespeare does not explain the dark 
riddle of life; he does say with unequaled earnestness, 
"Woe unto them that call darkness light and light dark- 
ness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." 

Toward the close of his life, Shakespeare passed in his 
art out of this tragic mood, to write some of the loveliest 
of his comedies, with undiminished freshness and 
creative vigor. The imagination which at the beginning 
of Shakespeare's work budded forth in The Midsummer 
Night's Dream, the fairy land of Oberon and Titania, 
gives being to the dainty Spirit Ariel, speeding at the com- 
mand of Prospero, or cradled in the bell of the cowslip ; 
while, in the Winter s Tale, the stress of tragedy over, 
we can fancy ourselves back again in Warwickshire with 
Shakespeare, breathing its country odors and gazing on the 

" daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty."* 

As Shakespeare's fortune and engagements permitted 
him, he seems to have spent more and more time in his 

* " Winter's Tale," act iv. sc. 3. 



104 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

native place ; and he appears to have returned there 
about 1610 or 1612. He had said his last to the world ; 
Retirement of ^ or a ^ ew s ^ ent years, that appeal profoundly 
Stratford. to our imaginative interest, he lived in the 

midst of the scenes and associations of his boyhood, 
and then, on the 23d of April, 1616, the fifty-second anni- 
versary, it is supposed, of his birth, he closed his eyes 
on the world. 

Shakespeare speaks tc all times and nations for the 
English nature and genius. He gathers and sums up the 
best that has gone before him — the Celtic wit, fancy, 
and deftness ; the Teutonic solidity and sincerity, its 
earnestness, morality, and reverence for the unseen. 
To this capacious nature, drawing its forces from the 
genius of two races, awakened Italy gives her tribute ; 
and through it the English Renaissance finds its su- 
preme poetic utterance. This man, then, stands for 
the English people, a king over them for all time. 
" Here, I say," Carlyle writes, " is an English king, 
whom no time or chance, Parliament or combination 
of Parliaments can dethrone ! This king, Shakespeare, 
does not he shine in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as 
the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying-signs ; in- 
destructible ; really more valuable in that point of view 
than any other means or appliance whatsoever ? We 
can fancy him as radiant aloft over all the Nations of 
Englishmen a thousand years hence. From Paramatta, 
from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of parish- 
constable soever, English men and women are, they will 
say to one another: 'Yes, this Shakespeare is ourj ; we 
produced him, we speak and think by him; we are of 
one blood and kind with him.'" * 

* " The Hero as Poet" in " Heroes and Hero-Worship," by Thomas 

Carlyle. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



105 



TABLE OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS. 
{F. J. Furnival.) 



I. PRE-SHAKESPEARIAN GROUP. 

Touched by Shakespeare. 
Titus Andronicus (1588-90). 

1 Henry VI. (1590-91). 

II. EARLY COMEDIES. 

Love's Labor Lost (159c). 
Comedy of Errors (1591). 
Two Gentlemen of Verona 

(1592-93). 
Midsummer Night's Dream 

(!593-94)- 

III. MARLOWE-SHAKESPEARE 
GROUP. 

Early History. 

2 and 3 Henry VI. (1591- 
Richard III. (1593). 



■9 2 , 



IV. EARLY TRAGEDY. 

Romeo and Juliet (? two dates, 
1591, 1596-97). 

V. MIDDLE HISTORY. 

Richard II. (1594). 
King John (1595). 

VI. MIDDLE COMEDY. 

Merchant of Venice (1596). 

VII. LATER HISTORY. 

History and Comedy United. 
1 and 2 Henry IV. (1597-98). 
Henry V. (1599). 



(b) Joyous, Refined, Romantic. 
Much Ado about Nothing 

(i598). 
As You Like It (1599). 
Twelfth Night (1600-1601). 

(c) Serious, Dark, Ironical. 
All's Well (? 1601-1602). 
Measure for Measure (1603). 
Troilus and Cressida (? 1603 ; 

revised 1607 ?). 



IX. MIDDLE TRAGEDY. 

Julius Caesar (1601). 
Hamlet (1602). 

X. LATER TRAGEDY. 

Othello (1604). 

Lear (1605). 

Macbeth (1606). 

Antony and Cleopatra (1607). 

Coriolanus (1608). 

Timon (1607-1608). 

XI. ROMANCES. 

Pericles (1608). 
Cymbeline (1609). 
Tempest (1610). 
Winter's Tale (1610-11). 

XII. FRAGMENTS. 

Two Noble Kinsmen (161 2). 
Henry VIII. (1612-13). 



Poems. 



VIII. LATER COMEDY. 

(a) Rough and Boisterous 

Comedy. Venus and Adonis (? 1592] 

Taming of the Shrew (? 1597). Lucrece (1593-94). 

Merry Wives (? 1598). Sonnets (? 1595-1605). 



1 06 PERIOD OF ITA LI A N INFL UENCE. 

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE— INTRODUCTION. 

The Merchant of Venice, one of the most delightful 
of Shakespeare's comedies, is thought to have been 
composed between 1594 and 1598, Within these limits 

Date of com- Shakespearian scholars differ as to its pre- 
position. c j se d a te, t>ut all agree that it was not later 

than 1598, as mention is made of it in that year. 

Like Chaucer and many early authors, Shakespeare did 
not invent his own plots; he freely appropriated whatever 
story seemed suited to his purpose — an old play, an 

sources of the Italian novel, a story of Boccaccio's, a 
Pl0t - chronicle of English History, or Plutarch's 

Lives of Illustrious Men. There is a real value in trac- 
ing the materials which Shakespeare used. It gives us 
some hint of the extent and direction of his reading, and 
it fills us with wonder to see how his genius uses scattered 
hints or the slight outline of a story, and how his magic, 
wand transforms the ordinary into a something " rich 
and strange." Doubtless there was more than one reason 
why Shakespeare relied on others for his plots; but one 
only need be mentioned. Dr. Furness reminds us of the 
extreme rapidity with which Shakespeare worked — writ- 
ing about forty plays in twenty years, or, on an average, 
one every six months during his entire working career — 
and then adds: "Thus, driven by the necessity of speed 
on the one hand, and by anxiety to catch the popular 
fancy on the other, is it any wonder that Shakespeare 
never stopped to devise a plot ? " * * 

The Merchant of Venice is no exception to Shake- 
speare's general rule in this particular, but the especial 
source or sources from which he derived his material 
have been much discussed. It is enough to say here 

* Furness Var. Ed " Merchant of Venice," 289, which see, also, for full 
discussion of probable date of play and sources of the plot. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE— INTRODUCTION. lOf 

that there seems to have been an earlier English play on 
which Shakespeare's was founded. Either the unknown 
author of this earlier play, or Shakespeare himself, was 
largely indebted for the story to an Italian novel, " II Pe- 
corone, of Ser Giovanni. Some think that Shakespeare 
also used a book of Declamations called Silvayri s Or- 
ator (1576), which contains a speech about " a Jew who 
would for his debt have a pound of the flesh of a 
Christian." 

It is important for us to notice that the origin of the 
story is another reminder of the bond between Renais- 
sance England and Italy. It is, also, proper to add that 
Shakespeare, or his unknown predecessor, has combined 
two separate and distinct stories, the story of the Cas- 
kets, and that of the Bond given for the pound of flesh. 
The Merchant of Venice, like so many of 

CU 1 1 A A U The PIay ' 

Shakespeare s plays, seems surrounded by 
an atmosphere peculiar to itself. By its very title two 
things are suggested — Venice, and all the magic, beauty, 
and romance that the name itself stands for and implies; 
and Commerce, that spirit of trade with which the Venetian 
Republic is forever associated and on which the great- 
ness of the city was built. These two elements, skill- 
fully intermingled, give to the play its characteristic at- 
mosphere or coloring. 

The spirit of beauty and sentiment speaks in the 
charming story, reclaimed from the realm of absolute ro- 
mance only by the power of Shakespeare's art. To an 
Elizabethan audience there was a glamour in the Italian 
background, even in the casual mention of names and 
places, that came freighted with suggestion. To an Eng- 
lishman of Shakespeare's day, this Italy of the Renaissance 
was a region of wonder and inspiration. Its marble 
palaces, its unmatched and curious treasures of art, its 
learning, its luxurious magnificence and pagan refine- 



lo8 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

ments of pleasure, the .warmth of its southern nights, 
the liquid blue of its southern skies — these things intoxi- 
cated the colder and more sober English nature, and 
bewildered the English conscience. An English traveler 
of the sixteenth century expresses the feelings of his 
countrymen when he speaks of Venice as, "this incom- 
parable citie, this rich diadem and most flourishing gar- 
land of Christendom." * This is the scene to which 
Shakespeare brings us ; the Venice which 

" Sate in state, throned on her hundred isles. 

The pleasant place of all festivity, 

The revel of the earth, the mask of Italy."! 

Nowhere in the play does Shakespeare so transport us 
by this magical spell of Italy as at its close. In the last 
act there is no note of discord. The stately garden of 
Portia's mansion, the soft stillness, the full-orbed moon, 
the touches of sweet music, the ecstatic lovers quickened 
into the perception of an underlying harmony in the 
universe and in " immortal souls," the dash of raillery 
and wit, the vague anticipation of an eternal order, all 
these things mean to us the grace of a long dead Italian 
night, until the curtain falls. 

But if we are thus made to feel the beauty of Venice, 
her commercial greatness is, perhaps, even more strongly 
indicated. This is almost too obvious to require illustra- 
tion. The note is struck at the very start in the allusion 
of Salarino to Antonio's argosies. Trade, the lending 
out of money gratis, the relation of debtor and creditor, 
the risks of distant traffic, the legal enforcement of a 
contract — all this purely business element is woven into 
the airy tissue of a romance. When Salarino declares 

* Coryat's " Crudities," vol. ii. p. 76. 

f Byron's " Childe Harold," canto iv. It will be well for the student to 
read the whole of this description. 






THE MERCHANT OF VENICE— INTRODUCTION. 109 

that the Duke will never uphold the forfeiture of the 
bond, Antonio, the practical merchant, replies: 

" The Duke cannot deny the course of law ; 
For the commodity that strangers have 
With us in Venice, if it be denied, 
Will much impeach the justice of the state ; 
Since that the trade and profit of the city 
Consisteth of all nations." * 

More is involved in the impartial enforcement of the 
law than the sympathetic Salarino realizes. The com- 
mercial relations of Venice are world-wide ; weaken the 
general confidence in the justice of her tribunals, deny 
the obligation of a contract, and a blow is struck at the 
foundations of her supremacy. In such allusions we 
have the mercantile side of Venice, the city that "once 
did hold the gorgeous East in fee," whose very site was 
chosen for security and commerce, on the great trading 
sea of the mediaeval world. 

Looking at the play from its commercial side, the 
central figure for us on the Rialto, " Where merchants 
most do congregate," is not Antonio but Shylock. Not 
that Shylock typifies commercial Venice, as Portia seems 
to sum up and express its beauty and charm, but because 
in him we have the extreme instance of the money- 
lender and the money-getter. Indeed, money enters into 
the play in so many ways, that one critic believes its 
main object is to " depict the relations of man to prop- 
erty." f 

Thus we have Portia the heiress, Bassanio the spend- 
thrift fortune-hunter, Shylock the usurer and money- 
lender, and Antonio the borrower, while Jessica and 
Lorenzo appear as the abstractors of money — to use the 
gentlest term. Money, our use or abuse of it, does 

* Act iii. sc. 3. 

f Gervinus, "Shakespeare Commentaries," vol. i. p. 326. 



no PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

occupy a great place in the play ; but we must look else- 
where for the central motive. Shylock's master passion 
is not the love of money, but the passion for revenge. So 
far as the play is concerned, this is the main-spring of his 
action, and he prefers his " weight of carrion flesh " to 
thirty thousand ducats. He conceives the idea of using 
the very laws of the state to gratify his hatred of Antonio, 
and of perpetrating no less a crime than murder, in the 
open court, and under the cover of legal sanction. Ac- 
cording to the view taken in the play, Shylock has a 
perfect legal right to do this ; — a right, it must be re- 
membered, which even Portia does not question. On 
this Shylock doggedly takes his stand, demanding merely 
"justice and his bond." On every hand his appeal to 
justice is met by a counter-appeal for mercy ; we are told 
that " twenty merchants, the Duke himself, and the 
magnificoes of greatest port," all persuaded with him.* 

Salarino begs for mercy ; Shylock declares " the Duke 
shall grant me justice." f The Duke, using the same 
argument afterward employed by Portia, asks: 

" How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none ? " 

only to be met by the same answer — 

" What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong ? " 

And a little later, Portia urges the necessity for mercy in 
her famous plea, and, as she confronts the inexorable 
Shylock, the spirit of forgiveness and the spirit of 
revenge, Christian charity and the pharisaical reliance on 
the technical observance of the letter of the law, stand, 
as they do throughout the play, in dramatic contrast. 

The central thought and dramatic motive of the play 
seems then to be one quite in keeping with the general 
tenor of Shakespeare's work, and, we are tempted to sup- 

* Act iii. sc. * f Act iii. sc. 3. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE— INTRODUCTION. Hi 

pose, with the character of Shakespeare himself. Human 
weakness requires another law than that of rigid justice. 
Neither in our heavenly nor our earthly relations dare we 
" stand upon our bond." Shylock, entrenched in the 
support of a lower and earthly law, fails to see upon what 
compulsion he " must be merciful." But Shakespeare, 
through Portia, points to the obligation of the higher 
law; he tells us that there is something " not nominated 
in the bond," even charity ; the grace of a mutual forbear- 
ance without which human life would be literally un- 
livable. He enforces in his way the parable of the un- 
just steward, "'Shouldst thou not, therefore, have had 
compassion upon thy fellow servant even as I had pity 
on thee?" 

Shylock is by no means the only offender against this 
law of charity. His hatred against Antonio has been 
excited partly by wanton insults and brutality. When 
Shylock recounts all he had endured, and how Antonio 
has called him dog, he is met by the taunting answer : 

11 1 am as like to call thee so again, 
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too." * 

And when after the Christian invocation of mercy in the 
trial scene, the Duke asks, 

" What mercy can you render him, Antonio ? " 

Gratiano flippantly interposes, 

" A halter gratis ; nothing else, for God's sake," f 

and it may be questioned whether there is not a spice of 
malice in the apparently liberal terms proposed by An- 
tonio. The play is, therefore, no mere exhibition of the 
Jew's hatred ; it dares to show besides this the short- 
comings of the Christian, and to point to all the great 
lesson of charity. 

* Acti. sc. 3. f Activ. sc. 1. 



1 1 2 PERIOD OF ITALIAN I NFL UENCE. 

The strongly opposed characters of Shylock and 
Portia are the principal figures in the play, around which 
its interest and action centre, and to which the other 
personages are strictly and properly subor- 
dinated. Antonio is a moping and poor- 
spirited creature, without energy, without strength 
enough to hate, or, of course, to love, whose flesh is 
really worth nothing else but " to bait fish withal." 
Whatever we may think of Bassanio, there is certainly 
nothing about him to distract our attention from the 
central male character of the play. 

Shakespeare would have us see something more in Shy- 
lock than the grasping and revengeful Jew, " incapable 
of pity, void and empty of any dram of mercy." With a 
force of character which we sharply contrast with the 
feebleness of Antonio, with that intellectual superiority 
which so often characterized the mediaeval Jew, he is the 
despised and ill treated member of a persecuted race, and 
after the loss of his daughter the very boys of Venice 
hoot at the old man's heels. Hunter writes: " Had the 
Jew been able tro resent in proper time and with proper 
impunity, any wrongs that might have been inflicted upon 
him, his resentment would have had vent, and might have 
left his heart capable of charity ; but he had to endure, 
without retaliation, injury and insult, time after time, 
until his heart became hardened as a stone that would 
whet keenly the knife of vengeance should legal justice 
ever give him an opportunity of obtaining redress."* 
Shylock speaks but the truth when he exclaims, " If a 
Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge " ; 
and we cannot wonder that to him the logic of his con- 
clusion seems unanswerable. " If a Christian wrong a Jew, 
what should his sufferance be by Christian example? 
Why, revenge." But Shakespeare has not given us this 
* " New Illustrations of Shakespeare," Rev. James Hunter, p. 15. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE— INTRODUCTION. 113 

tragic figure of Shylock, with its bitterness, avarice, 
severity, and tenacity of purpose, without a hint of another 
side to the man's nature of which we know nothing. 
There is a world of suggestion in his agonized outburst, 
when that Job's comforter, the " good " Tubal, mentions 
the fate of the turquoise ring. " Out upon thee, thou 
torturest me, Tubal ; it was my turquoise ; I had it of 
Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it 
for a wilderness of monkeys." * We should not then 
unthinkingly condemn Shylock ; while we cannot excuse 
him, we should rather regard him as the melancholy 
consequence of the lack of charity among those who 
profess and call themselves Christians. 

Portia is the centre of the beauty and charm of the play. 
The inheritor of wealth, not the accumulator of it, sur- 
rounded by a golden atmosphere of culture, ease, and 
splendor, she can give royally. She is perhaps the most 
intellectual of all Shakespeare's women ; she alone rises to 
the crisis in the trial, while the court, her husband, and 
Antonio stand helpless. Yet, she puts off nothing of 
her womanhood when she puts on the lawyer's robe of 
Bellario's representative. 

In our nineteenth century she would have run great 
risk of being what we call " strong-minded," but, happily 
for the lovers of Shakespeare's Portia, she lived in other 
times. A keen, high-bred, witty, charming woman, play- 
ful, dignified, and loving; with all she has — happy to 
commit herself to her husband " to be directed." 

* Act. iii. sc 1. 



114 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 



The Merchant of Venice. 



DRAMATIS PERSONM. 

Duke of Venice. Launcelot Gobbo, Clown, Servant 

Prince of Morocco, ) to Shylock, afterwards Servant to 

Prince of Arragon, \ Bassanio. 

Suitors to Portia. Old' Gobbo, Father to Launcelot. 

Antonio, the Merchant of Venice. Leonardo, Servant to Bassanio. 

Bassanio, his Friend, Suitor to Balthazar, ) c . . „ .. 

Portia. Stephano, \ Servants to Porita ' 

Gratiano, ) ~ . , . a ^ •' Portia, a rich Heiress. 

Salanio, \Frtends to Antonio n ^i^, her Waiting-maid. 

Salarino, J ana # assamo - Jessica, Daughter to Shylock. 

Salerio, a Messenger. Magnifcoes of Venice, Officers of 

Lorenzo, in love with Jessica. the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Ser- 

Shylock, a Jew. vants to Portia, and other Attend- 

Tubal, a Jew, his Friend. ants. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — Venice. A Street. 
Enter Antonio, Salarino, a?id Salanio. 
Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad: 
It wearies me; you say it wearies you ; 
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, 
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, 
I am to learn ; 5 

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, 
That I have much ado to know myself. 

i. Sooth. — Means truth ; soothsayer, a truthsayer, or prophet. See char- 
acter of soothsayer in " Julius Caesar." 

i. Sad. The sadness of Antonio is made so prominent that some have 
called it the " keynote" of the play. Dr. Furness points out that the play is 
a comedy, not a tragedy, as " Hamlet," or " Macbeth." where the keynote 
is given in the midnight ghost, and the witches, and blasted heath. He 
finds the explanation in a note of Professor Allen, that " If Antonio were 
not represented as a melancholy man, and, therefore, croc he ly, he would not 
have been so extravagantly devoted to a friend, nor would he have signed 
such a bond." His melancholy is the keynote, not as portending disaster, 
but as explaining how a merchant and man of affairs could afterwards behave 
asa" want-wit" in signing the Jew's bond. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 115 

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean ; 
There, where your argosies with portly sail, 
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, 10 

Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea, 
Do overpeer the petty traffickers, 
That curt'sy to them, do them reverence, 
As they fly by them with their woven wings. 

Salem. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, 15 

The better part of my affections would 
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still 
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind, 
Peering in maps for, ports, and piers, and roads ; 
And every object that might make me fear 20 

Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt, 
Would make me sad. 

Salar. My wind, cooling my broth, 

Would blow me to an ague, when I thought 
What harm a wind too great might do at sea. 
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, 25 

But I should think of shallows and of flats, 
And see my wealthy Andrew docked in sand, 
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs, 
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church, 
And see the holy edifice of stone, 30 

8. Ocean. — This word is a tri-syllable. In many cases, as in words end- 
ing in Hon, cion, the metre indicates that, in Shakespeare's time, both vowels 
were sounded. 

9. Argosies. — Merchant vessels. Probably corrupted from "ragusye," a 
vessel of Ragusa, an old Adriatic seaport with which Venice had an early 
trade. 

10. Signiors. — Lords ; seignory, dominion. So used in Shakespeare. 
Eng. sire, or sir. 

10. Burghers. — Citizens, freemen of a borough. 

11. Pageants. — In allusion to enormous machines, in the shape of castles, 
dragons, etc., drawn about the streets in ancient shows and miracle plays ; 
as our floats in street processions. See description in Scott's " Kenilworth," 
vol. ii. chap. vii. 

27. Andrew. — The name of his ship. Perhaps from Andrea Doria. See 
Ency. Brit., 9th ed., vol. vii. p. 366. 

28. Vailing her high-top, i.e., lowering her mast by tilting over in the 
sand. 



1 1 6 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFL UENCE. 

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, 

Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side, 

Would scatter all her spices on the stream, 

Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks ; 

And, in a word, but even now worth this, 35 

And now worth nothing ? Shall I have the thought 

To think on this, and shall I lack the thought 

That such a thing bechanced would make me sad ? 

But tell not me : I know Antonio 

Is sad to think upon his merchandise. 40 

Ant. Believe me, no. I thank my fortune for it, 
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 
Nor to one place ; nor is my whole estate 
Upon the fortune of this present year : 
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad, 45 

Salar. Why, then you are in love. 

A?it. Fie, fie ! 

Salar. Not in love neither ? Then let's say you are sad, 
Because you are not merry : and 'twere as easy 
For you to laugh and leap, and say you are merry, 
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, 50 

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time : 
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
And laugh, like parrots at a bag-piper ; 
And others of such vinegar aspect, 

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile 55 

Though Nestor swear and jest be laughable. 

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano. 

Satan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, 
Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well : 
We leave you now with better company. 

Salar. I would have stayed till I had made you merry, 60 
If worthier friends had not prevented me. 

50. Janus. — He swears by that double-faced divinity who was represented 
as both laughing and sad. Look up Janus in " Classical Dictionary." 
Classical allusions are frequent in the works of Shakespeare and his contem- 
poraries, and illustrate the recent revival of interest in classical studies. 
The student should look them up as they occur thoughout the play, and find 
out how and why they are used. 

61. Prevented. — Used in the old sense of anticipated. How derived ? 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. H7 

A?it. Your worth is very dear in my regard. 
I take it, your own business calls on you, 
And you embrace the occasion to depart. 

Salar. Good morrow, my good lords. 65 

Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh ? say, 
when ? 
You grow exceeding strange : must it be so ? 

Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. 

[Exeunt Salarino and Salanio. 

Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio, * 
We two will leave you ; but at dinner-time, 70 

I pray you, have in mind where we must meet. 

Bass. I will not fail you. 

Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio ; 
You have too much respect upon the world : 
They lose it that do buy it with much care. 75 

Believe me, you are marvellously changed. 

Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano : 
A stage where every man must play a part, 
And mine a sad one. 

Gra. Let me play the fool : 

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, 80 

And let my liver rather heat with wine 
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. 
Why should a man whose blood is warm within 
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? 

Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice 85 

By being peevish ? I tell thee what, Antonio — 
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks, — 
There are a sort of men whose visages 
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond, 
And do a wilful stillness entertain, 90 

With purpose to be dressed in an opinion 
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit ; 
As who should say, " I am Sir Oracle, 
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark ! " 
O, my Antonio, I do know of these 95 

79. Fool. — Not foolish person, but a professional Jester, a character often 
found in old plays. See the Fool in "Lear," Touchstone in "As You 
Like it," also Wamba in Scott's "Ivanhoe." The Jester formed a part of 
the household establishment of kings or nobles. 



1 1 8 PERIOD OF IT A LI AN I NFL UENCE. 

That therefore only are reputed wise, 

For saying nothing; when, I am very sure, 

If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, 

Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. 

I'll tell thee more of this another time : ioo 

But fish not, with this melancholy bait 

For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion. — 

Come, good Lorenzo. — Fare ye well awhile : 

I'll end my exhortation after dinner. 

Lor. Well, we will leave you, then, till dinner-time. 105 

I must be one of these same dumb wise men, 
For Gratiano never lets me speak. 

Gra. Well, keep me company but two years more, 
Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. 

Ant. Farewell : I'll grow a talker for this gear. 1 10 

Gra. Thanks, i' faith ; for silence is only commendable 
In a neat's tongue dried. 

[Exeunt Gratiano and LORENZO. 

Ant. Is that anything now ? 
Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than 
any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat 115 
hid in two bushels of chaff : you shall seek all day ere you find 
them ; and when you have them, they are not worth the search. 

Ant. Well, tell me now, what lady is the same 
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, 
That you to-day promised to tell me of ? 120 

Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, 
How much I have disabled mine estate, 
By something showing a more swelling port 
Than my faint means would grant continuance : 
Nor do I now make moan to be abridged 125 

From such a noble rate ; but my chief care 
Is to come fairly off from the great debts 

104. Exhortation. — Perhaps an allusion to a Puritan sermon, too long to 
be finished before dinner. Slurs upon Puritanism are frequent among the 
Elizabethan dramatists ; See Malvolio in " Twelfth Night." Why was this ? 
How did Puritans regard the stage ? 

no. Gear. — Purpose, matter, affair. 

124. Continuance, i. e. continuance of. 

125. To be abridged. — Infinitive used as a noun or gerund. Complain of 
the abridgement. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 119 

Wherein my time, something too prodigal, 

Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio, 

I owe the most, in money, and in love ; 130 

And from your love I have a warranty 

To unburthen all my plots and purposes, 

How to get clear of all the debts I owe. 

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it ; 
And if it stand as you yourself still do, 135 

Within the eye of honour, be assured, 
My purse, my person, my extremest means, 
Lie all unlocked to your occasions. 

Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft 
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight 140 

The self-same way, with more advised watch 
To find the other forth, and by adventuring both, 
I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof, 
Because what follows is pure innocence. 

I owe you much, and like a wilful youth, 145 

That which I owe is lost ; but if you please 
To shoot another arrow that self way 
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, 
As I will watch the aim, or to find both, 

Or bring your latter hazard back again, 150 

And thankfully rest debtor for the first. 

Ant. You know me well, and herein spend but time 
To wind about my love with circumstance ; 
And, out of doubt, you do me now more wrong, 
In making question of my uttermost, 155 

Than if you had made waste of all I have : 
Then do but say to me what I should do, 
That in your knowledge may by me be done, 
And I am prest unto it : therefore speak. 

Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left, 160 

And she is fair and, fairer than that word, 
Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes 
I did receive fair speechless messages. 
Her name is Portia; nothing undervalued 
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia: 165 

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth ; 

159. Prest, ready, from Lat. praestus. Fr. pret. 



120 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

For the four winds blow in from every coast 

Renowned suitors ; and her sunny locks 

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece, 

Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, • 170 

And many Jasons come in quest of her. 

O, my Antonio, had I but the means 

To hold a rival place with one of them, 

I have a mind presages me such thrift, 

That I should questionless be fortunate. 175 

Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea ; 
Neither have I money nor commodity 
To raise a present sum : therefore go forth 
Try what my credit can in Venice do : 

That shall be racked, even to the uttermost, 180 

To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. 
Go, presently inquire, and so will I, 
Where money is, and I no questions make 
To have it of my trust, or for my sake. [Exeunt. 

Scene II.— Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. 
Enter Portia and Nerissa. 

For. By the troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this 185 
great world. 

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in 
the same abundance as your good fortunes are. And yet, for 
aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they 
that starve with nothing. It is no small happiness, therefore, to 190 
be seated in the mean : superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, 
but competency lives longer. 

For. Good sentences, and well pronounced. 

Ner. They would be better, if well followed. 

For. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, 195 
chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' 
palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions : 
I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be 
one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may 
devise laws for the blood ; but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold 200 
decree : such a hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er the 
meshes of good counsel, the cripple. But this reasoning is not in 

182. Presently, i. e., immediately — at once. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 121 

the fashion to choose me a husband. — me, the word choose / 
I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike ; 
so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead 205 
father. — Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor 
refuse none ? 

Ner. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their 
death have good inspirations ; therefore, the lottery that he hath 
devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead, (whereof 210 
who chooses his meaning, chooses you,) will, no doubt, never be 
chosen by any rightly but one whom you shall rightly love. 
But what warm tli is there in your affection towards any of these 
princely suitors that are already come ? 

Por. I pray thee, over-name them, and as thou namest them 215 
I will describe them ; and, according to my description, level at 
my affection. 

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. 

Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of 
his horse ; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own 220 
good parts, that he can shoe him himself. 

Ner. Then is there the county Palatine. 

Por. He cloth nothing but frown, as who should say, " An you 
will not have me, choose." He hears merry tales and smiles not ; 
I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, 225 
being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather 
be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to 
either of these. God defend me from these two ! 

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon ? 

Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In 230 
truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: but, he ! why, he hath a 
horse better than the Neopolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning 
than the count Palatine : he is every man in no man ; if a throstle 
sing, he falls straight a-capering: he will fence with his own 
shadow. If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. 235 
If he would despise me, I would forgive him ; for if he love me 
to madness, I shall never requite him. 

Ner. What say you, then, to Faulconbridge, the young baron of 
England ? 

Por. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not 240 
me, nor I him : he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian ; and you 

225. Weeping philosopher . — Who was the weeping philosopher ? 



122 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

will come into the court and swear that I have a poor penny-worth 
in the English. He is a proper man's picture ; but, alas ! who can 
converse with a dumb-show ? How oddly he is suited ! I think, 
he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his 245 
bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. 

Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour ? 

For. That he hath a neighbourly chanty in him ; for he bor- 
rowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would 
pay him again when he was able : I think the Frenchman became 250 
his surety, and sealed under for another. 

Ner. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's 
nephew T ? 

For. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most 
vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk : when he is best, he is 255 
a little worse than a man ; and when he is worst, he is a little 
better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I 
shall make shift to go without him. 

Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, 
you should refuse to perform"your father's will, if you should re- 260 
fuse to accept him. 

For. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep 
glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for, if the devil 

244. Oddly Suited. — The richer English of Shakespeare's time were fond 
of extravagant, ill-assorted, and sometimes foreign fashions in dress. 
Bishop Hall, in one of his satires, says : 

"' They naked went ; or, clad in ruder hide, 
Or home-spun russet, void of forraine pride : 
But thou canst maske in garish gauderie, 
To suit a foole's far-fetched liverie. 
A French head, joyned to necke Italian, 
Thy thighs from Germaine, and brest from Spain ; 
An Englishman in none, a foole in all ; 
Many in one, and one in severall." 
" These foreign fashions did not escape Shakespeare's ridicule," says Mr. 
Edwin Goadby. " The Duke of York, in ' Richard II.,' complains that the 
king is too much engrossed with the 

" Report of fashions in proud Italy, 
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation 
Limps after, in base imitation." 
250. Frenchman. — What were the relations between the English, 
French, and Scotch at this time? 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 23 

be within, and the temptation without, I know he will choose 
it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a 265 
sponge. 

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords : 
they have acquainted me with their determinations ; which is, 
indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no 
more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than 270 
your father's imposition, depending on the caskets. 

Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as 
Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I 
am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable ; for there is not 
one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I wish them 275 
a fair departure. 

Ner. Do you remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, 
a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company with the 
Marquess of Montferrat ? 

Por. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio ; as I think, so was he 280 
called. 

Ner. True, madam : he, of all the men that ever my foolish 
eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. 

Por. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of 
thy praise. 285 

Enter a Servant. 

Serv. The four strangers seek you, madam, to take their 
leave ; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the prince of 
Morocco, who brings word the prince his master will be here 
to-night. 

Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I 290 
can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach : 
if he have the condition of a saint, and the complexion of a 
devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. 
Come, Nerissa. — Sirrah, go before. — 

Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the 295 
door. [Exeunt. 

Scene III.— Venice. A public Place. 

Enter Bassanio and SHYLOCK. 

Shy. Three thousand ducats, — well. 

Bass. Ay, sir, for three months. 

Shy. For three months, — well. 

Bass. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound. 



124 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Shy. Antonio shall become bound, — well. 300 

Bass. May you stead me ? Will you pleasure me ? Shall I 
know your answer ? 

Shy. Three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio 
bound. 

Bass. Your answer to that. 305 

Shy. Antonio is a good man. 

Bass. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary? 

Shy. Oh, no, no, no, no : — my menning, in saying he is a good 
man, is to have you understand me, that he is sufficient : yet his 
means are in supposition : he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, 310 
another to the Indies ; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he 
hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures 
he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors 
but men : there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and 
water«4:hieves, I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of 315 
waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient. 
Three thousand ducats ; — I think, I may take his bond. 

Bass. Be assured you may. 

Shy. I will be assured I may ; and, that I may be assured, I 
will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio ? 320 

Bass. If it please you to dine with us. 

Shy. Yes, to smell pork ; to eat of the habitation which your 
prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with 
you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following ; 
but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. 325 
What news on the Rialto ? — Who is he comes here ? 

311. Rialto. — There were three places in Venice called the Rialto — one of 
the islands on which Venice was built ; the Exchange building built on this 
island, where merchants transacted their business ; and the bridge conned ing 
the island with St. Mark's quarter. Shylock uses the word as we would say, 
" I understand upon 'Change." In Coryat's " Crudities," published in 1766, 
we find, " The first place of Venice that was inhabited is that which they now 
call the Rialto, which word is derived from rivus alius, that is, a deepe river, 
because the water is deeper there than about the other islands." — Vol. i. p. 
201. See also note on line 336. 

313. Squandered.— Scattered, not wasted. Note the various countries 
with which Antonio is said to trade, especially Mexico. The discovery of 
new countries was an important element in the Renaissance ; such references 
are frequent in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. 

323. Conjured. — What miracle is here referred to ? 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 25 

Enter Antonio. 

Bass. This is Signior Antonio. 

Shy. [Aside.] How like a fawning publican he looks ! 
I hate him for he is a Christian, 

But more, for that in low simplicity, 330 

He lends out money gratis, and brings down 
The rate of usance here with us in Venice. 
If I catch him once upon the hip, 
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. 
He hates our sacred nation ; and he rails, 335 

Even there where merchants most do congregate, 
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, 
Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe, 
If I forgive him ! 

Bass. Shylock, do you hear ? 

Sky. I am debating of my present store, 340 

And, by the near guess of my memory, 
I cannot instantly raise up the gross 
Of full three thousand ducats. What of that ? 
Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe, 

Will furnish me. But soft ! how many months 345 

Do you desire ? — [ To ANTONIO.] Rest you fair, good 

signior ; 
Your worship was the last man in our mouths. 

Ant. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow 
By taking nor by giving of excess, 
Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend, 350 

332. Usance. — Or usury, meant interest, not, as with us, an illegal rate. 
Christians considered it wrong to take any interest for the use of money. 

336. Merchants most, etc. — In Coryat's " Crudities " we find, " The 
Rialto, which is at the farther side of the bridge as you come from St. 
Mark's, is a most stately building, being the Exchange of Venice, 
where the Venetian gentlemen and the merchants doe meete twice a day, 
betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock in the morning, and between five and 
six o'clock of the afternoon. This Rialto is of a goodly height, built all 
with brick, as the palaces are, adorned with many fair walks or open gal- 
leries, that I have before mentioned, and it hath a pretty quadrangle court 
adjoining to it." — Vol. i. pp. 211, 212. 

344. Wealthy. — The cautious Jew implies that he himself is not wealthy. 
Note a similar action, probably imitated by Scott, in Isaac's loan to Ivanhoe, 
" Ivanhoe," vol. i. chap. vi. 



126 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

I'll break a custom. — Is he yet possessed 
How much you would ? ' 

Shy. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats. 

Ant. And for three months. 

Shy. I had forgot : — three months ; you told me so. 
Well then, your bond ; and let me see, — But hear you : 355 
Methought you said you neither lend nor borrow 
Upon advantage. 

Ant. I do never use it. 

Shy. When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's sheep, — 
This Jacob from our holy Abram was 

(As his wise mother wrought in his behalf) 360 

The third possessor ; ay, he was the third, — 

Ant. And what of him ? did he take interest ? 

Shy. No, not take interest ; not, as you would say 
Directly interest : mark what Jacob did. 

When Laban and himself were compromised, 365 

That all the eanlings which were streaked and pied 
Should fall as Jacob's hire, 
This was a way to thrive, and he was blest : 
And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not. 

Ant. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob served for ; 370 

A thing not in his power to bring to pass, 
But swayed and fashioned by the hand of Heaven. 
Was this inserted to make interest good ? 
Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams ? 

Shy. I cannot tell : I make it breed as fast. — 375 

But note me, signior. 

Ant. Mark you this, Bassanio, 

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. 
An evil soul producing holy witness 
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, 

A goodly apple rotten at the heart. 380 

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath ! 

Shy. Three thousand ducats ■ — 'tis a good round sum. 
Three months from twelve ;— then let me see the rate. 

Ant. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you ? 

Shy. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft, 38$ 

In the Rialto, you have rated me 
About my moneys and my usances : 
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug ; 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 127 

For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. 

You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, 390 

And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine, 

And all for use of that which is mine own. 

Well then, it now appears you need my help : 

Go to then ; you come to me, and you say, 

" Shylock, we would have moneys " : you say so ; 395 

You, that did void your rheum upon my beard 

And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur 

Over your threshold : moneys is your suit. 

What should I say to you ? Should I not say, 

" Hath a dog money ? Is it possible 400 

A cur can lend three thousand ducats ? " or 

Shall I bend low, and. in a bondman's key, 

W T ith bated breath, and whispering humbleness, 

Say this : — 

" Fair sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last ; 405 

You spurned me such a day ; another time 

You called me dog; and for these courtesies 

I'll lend you thus much moneys ? " 

Ant. I am as like to call thee so again, 
To spet on thee again, to spurn thee too. 410 

If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not 
As to thy friends ; for when did friendship take 
A breed of barren metal of his friends ? 
But lend it rather to thine enemy ; 

Who if he break, thou may'st with better face 415 

Exact the penalty. 

Shy. Why, look you, how you storm ! 

I would be friends with you, and have your love, 
Forget the shames that you have stained me with, 
Supply your present wants, and take no doit 
Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me. 420 

This is kind I offer. 

Bass. This were kindness. 

Sky. This kindness will I show. 

Go with me to a notary, seal me there 
Your single bond, and, in a merry sport, 

407. See Introduction to " Merchant of Venice." 
419. Doit, — A coin of small value. 



128 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

If you repay me not on such a day, 425 

In such a place, such sum or sums as are 

Expressed in the condition, let the forfeit 

Be nominated for an equal pound 

Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken 

In what part of your body it pleaseth me. 430 

Ant. Content, in faith : I'll seal to such a bond, 
And say there is much kindness in the Jew. 

Bass. You shall not seal to such a bond for me : 
I'll rather dwell in my necessity. 

Ant, Why, fear not, man ; I will not forfeit it : 435 

Within these two months — that's a month before 
This bond expires — I do expect return 
Of thrice three times the value of this bond. 

Sky. O father Abram ! what these Christians are, 
Whose own hard dealing teaches them suspect 440 

The thoughts of others ! — Pray you, tell me this ; 
If he should break his day, what should I gain 
By the exaction of the forfeiture ? 
A pound of man's flesh, taken from a man, 
Is not so estimable, profitable neither, 445 

As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say, 
To buy his favour, I extend this friendship : 
If he will take it, so ; if not, adieu ; 
And for my love, I pray you, wrong me not. 

Ant. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond. 450 

Sky. Then meet me forthwith at the notary's, 
Give him direction for this merry bond, 
And I will go and purse the ducats straight ; 
See to my house, left in the fearful guard 

Of an unthrifty knave ; and presently 455 

I will be with you. 

Ant. Hie thee, gentle Jew. 

[Exit Shylock. 
This Hebrew will turn Christian : he grows kind. 

Bass. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind. 

Ant. Come on, in this there can be no dismay ; 
My ships come home a month before the day. 460 

[Exeunt. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 29 

ACT II. 

Scene I.— Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. 

Enter the Pri?ice of MOROCCO, a?id his Followers; PORTIA, 
NERISSA, and others of her Trai?i. Flourish comets. 

Mor. Mislike me not for my complexion, 
The shadowed livery of the burnished sun 
To whom I am a neighbour and near bred. 
Bring me the fairest creature northward born, 
Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles, 465 

And let us make incision for your love 
To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine. 
I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine 
Hath feared the valiant ; by my love, I swear, 
The best regarded virgins of our clime 470 

Have loved it too. I would not change this hue, 
Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen. 

For. In terms of choice I am not solely led 
By nice direction of a maiden's eyes : 

Besides, the lottery of my destiny 475 

Bars me the right of voluntary choosing; 
But, if my father had not scanted me 
And hedged me by his wit to yield myself 
His wife who wins me by that means I told you, 
Yourself, renowned prince, then stood as fair 480 

As any comer I have looked on yet, 
For my affection. 

Mor. Even for that I thank you : 

Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets 
To try my fortune. By this scimitar, — 
That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince 485 

That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,— 
I would outstare the sternest eyes that look, 
Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth, 
Pluck the young suckling cubs from the she-bear, 
Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey, 490 

To win thee, lady. But, alas the while ! 
If Hercules and Lichas play at dice 

478. Wit. — Foresight, wisdom. 

485. Sophy. — A title given to the Emperor of Persia. 



13° PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Which is the better man, the greater throw 

May turn by fortune from the weaker hand, 

So is Alcides beaten by his page ; 495 

And so may I, blind fortune leading me, 

Miss that which one unworthier may attain, 

And die with grieving. 

For. You must take your chance, 

And either not attempt to choose at all, 
Or swear before you choose, — if you choose wrong, 500 

Never to speak to lady afterward 
In way of marriage : therefore be advised. 

Mor. Nor will not. Come, bring me unto my chance. 

For. First, forward to the temple : after dinner 
Your hazard shall be made. 

Mor, Good fortune then, 505 

To make me blest or cursed'st among men ! 

[Comets, and exeunt. 

Scene II.— Venice. A Street. 

Enter Launcelot Gobbo. 

Lann. Certainly, my conscience will serve me to run from this 
Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow, and tempts me, 
saying to me — " Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot," or 
"good Gobbo," or "good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take 510 
the start, run away." My conscience says, — " No ; take heed, 
honest Launcelot ; take heed, honest Gobbo ; " or, as aforesaid, 
" honest Launcelot Gobbo ; do not run ; scorn running with thy 
heels." Well, the most courageous fiend bids me pack : " Via ! " 
says the fiend ; " away ! " says the fiend ; " for the heavens, rouse 515 
up a brave mind," says the fiend, " and run." Well, my con- 
science, hanging about the neck of my heart, says very 
wisely to me — " My honest friend Launcelot, being an honest 
man's son," — or rather an honest woman's son; — well, 
my conscience says, "Launcelot, budge not." "Budge," 520 
says the fiend : " Budge not," says my conscience. " Con- 
science," say I, " you counsel well ; " " fiend," say I, " you counsel 
well : " to be ruled by my conscience, I should stay with the Jew 
my master, who (God bless the mark) is a kind of devil ; and, to 
run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend, who, 525 
saving your reverence, is the devil himself. Certainly, the Jew is 






THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 13 1 

the very devil incarnation, and, in my conscience, my conscience 
is but a kind of hard conscience to offer to counsel me to stay 
with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly counsel : I will 
run, fiend ; my heels are at your commandment ; I will run. 530 

Enter old GOBBO, with a basket. 

Gob. Master, young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to 
Master Jew's ? 

Latin. [Aside.] O heavens, this is my true-begotten father, 
who, being more than sand-blind, high gravel-blind, knows me 
not : — I will try confusions with him. 535 

Gob. Master, young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to 
Master Jew's ? 

Latin. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but at 
the next turning of all, on your left ; marry, at the very next 
turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's 540 
house. 

Gob. By God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit. Can you 
tell me, whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with 
him, or no? 

Laun. Talk you of young Master Launcelot ? — [Aside.] Mark 545 
me now ; now will I raise the waters. — [ To hi?n.] Talk you of 
young Master Launcelot? 

Gob. No master, sir, but a poor man's son : his father, though 
I say it, is an honest exceeding poor man; and, God be thanked, 
well to live. 550 

Laun. Well, let his father be what a will, we talk of young 
Master Launcelot. 

Gob. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir. 

Laun. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk 
you of young Master Launcelot ? 555 

Gob. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership. 

Laun. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot, 
father ; for the young gentleman (according to Fates and Desti- 
nies, and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three, and such branches 
of learning) is, indeed, deceased ; or, as you would say, in plain 560 
terms, gone to heaven. 

Gob. Marry, God forbid ! the boy was the very staff of my age, 
my very prop. 

Laun. Do I look like a cudgel, or a hovel-post, a staff, or a 
prop ? — Do you know me, father ? 565 



132 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Gob. Alack the day! I know you not, young gentleman; but, 
I pray you, tell me, is my boy (God rest his soulj alive, or dead ? 

Laun. Do you not know me, father ? 

Gob. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind ; I know you not. 

Laun. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the 570 
knowing me ; it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, 
old man, I will tell you news of your son. [Kneels] Give me 
your blessing. Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid 
long, a man's son may, but in the end truth will out. 

Gob. Pray you, sir, stand up. I am sure you are not Launce- 575 
lot, my boy. 

Laun. Pray you. let's have no more fooling about it, but give 
me your blessing : I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son 
that is, your child that shall be. 

Gob. I cannot think you are my son. 580 

Laun. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am Launce- 
lot, the Jew's man, and, I am sure, Margery, your wife, is my 
mother. 

Gob. Her name is Margery, indeed : I'll be sworn, if thou be 
Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipped 585 
might he be! what a beard hast thou- got ; thou hast got more 
hair on thy chin, than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail. 

Laun. It should seem then that Dobbin's tail grows backward. 
I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face, 
when I last saw him. 590 

Gob. Lord ! how art thou changed ! How doest thou and thy 
master agree ? I have brought him a present. How gree you 
now ? 

Laun. Well, well ; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my 
rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground. 595 
My master's a very Jew : give him a present ! give him a halter : I 
am famished in his service. You may tell every finger I have 
with my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come : give me your 
present to one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liv- 
eries ; if I serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. 600 
— O rare fortune, here comes the man : — to him, father; for I am 
a Jew, if I serve the Jew any longer. 

Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, and other Followers. 

Bass. You may do so. but let it be so hasted, that supper be 
ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters de- 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 133 

livered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to come 605 
anon to my lodging. [Exit a Servant. 

Laun. To him, father. 

Gob. God bless your worship ! 

Bass. Gramercy. Wouldst thou aught with me ? 

Gob. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy, — 610 

Lann. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that would, 
sir, — as my father shall specify, — 

Gob. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to 
serve — 

Latin. Indeed, the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and 615 
have a desire, — as my father shall specify, — 

Gob. His master and he (saving your worship's reverence) are 
scarce cater-cousins, — 

Laun. To be brief, the very truth is, that the Jew having done 
me wrong, doth cause me,— as my father, being, I hope, an old 620 
man, shall frutify unto you, — 

Gob. I have here a dish of doves, that I would bestow upon 
your worship; and my suit is, — 

Laun. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as your 
worship shall know by this honest old man ; and, though I say 625 
it, though old man, yet poor man, my father. 

Bass. One speak for both. — What would you? 

Laun. Serve you, sir. 

Gob. That is the very defect of the matter, sir. 

Bass. I know thee well ; thou hast obtained thy suit : 630 

Shylock, thy master, spoke with me this day, 
And hath preferred thee, if it be preferment 
To leave a rich Jew's service, to become 
The follower of so poor a gentleman. 

Laun. The old proverb is very well parted between my master 635 
Shylock and you, sir : you have the grace of God, sir, and he 
hath enough. 

Bass. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son. 
Take leave of thy old master, and inquire 

My lodging out. \To his Followers^] Give him a livery 640 

More guarded than his fellows' : see it done. 

618. Cater-cousins. — Word of doubtful origin — meaning cousins in a 
remote degree. 

641. Guarded. — Laced — ornamented; the trimming is supposed to guard 
the edge from being worn. 



134 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Laun. Father* in. — I cannot get a service, no ; I have ne'er a 
tongue in my head. Well : [looking on his fialm~\ if any man in 
Italy have a fairer table, which doth offer to swear upon a book, 
I shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life, 645 
here's a small trifle of wives, alas, fifteen wives is nothing ; eleven 
widows, and nine maids, is a simple coming in for one man : and 
then, to 'scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life with 
the edge of a feather-bed, here are simple 'scapes : well, if For- 
tune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. — Father, 650 
come ; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling of an eye. 
[Exeu?it LAUNCELOT and old GOBBO. 

Bass, I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this. 
These things being bought and orderly bestowed, 
Return in haste, for I do feast to-night 
My best-esteemed acquaintance: hie thee, go. 655 

Leo?i. My best endeavors shall be done herein. 

Enter Gratiano. 

Gra. Where is your master? 

Leon. Yonder, sir, he walks. [Exit. 

Gra. Signior Bassanio, — 

Bass. Gratiano. 

Gra. I have a suit to you. 

Bass. , You have obtained it. 660 

Gra. You must not deny me : I must go with you to Belmont. 

Bass. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano ; 
Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice ; 
Parts, that become thee happily enough, 

And in such eyes as ours appear not faults, 665 

But where thou art not known, why, there they show 
Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain 
To allay with some cold drops of modesty 
Thy skipping spirit, lest, through thy wild behaviour, 
I be misconstrued in the place I go to, 670 

And lose my hopes. 

Gra. Signior Bassanio, hear me : 

If I do not put on a sober habit, 

644. Table. — /. e., the palm of his hand where he reads his fortune. Fur- 
ness, following Alien's note, punctuates this with an exclamation after table, 
understanding the " which," used like the Latin as a causal relative. The 
sense then is " for it doth offer to swear," etc. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 135 

Talk with respect, and swear but now and then, 

Wear prayer books in my pocket, look demurely, 

Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes 675 

Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen, 

Use all the observance of civility 

Like one well studied in a sad ostent 

To please his grandam, never trust me more. 

Bass. Well, we shall see your bearing. 680 

Gra. Nay, but I bar to-night ; you shall not gage me 
By what we do to-night. 

Bass. No, that were pity. 

I would entreat you rather to put on 
Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends 

That purpose merriment. But fare you well : 685 

I have some business. 

Gra. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest : 
But we will visit you at supper-time. {Exeunt. 



Scene III.— The Same. A Room in Shylock's House. 
Enter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT. 

Jes. I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so : 
Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil, 690 

Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness. 
But fare thee well ; there is a ducat for thee : 
And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see 
Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest : 

Give him this letter, do it secretly : 695 

And so farewell ; I would not have my father 
See me in talk with thee. 

Lairn. Adieu ! — tears exhibit my tongue. — Most beautiful 
pagan, most sweet Jew, adieu ! these foolish drops do somewhat 
drown my manly spirit : adieu ! 700 

Jes. Farewell, good Launcelot. — [Exit LAUNCELOT. 

Alack, what heinous sin is it in me, 
To be ashamed to be my father's child ! 
But though I am a daughter to his blood, 
I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo, 705 

676. Hat. — In Shakespeare's time, hats were worn at meals. 



I3 6 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife, 

Become a Christian and thy loving wife. [Exit. 

Scene IV.— The Same. A Street. 
Enter Gratiano, Lorenzo, Salarino, and Salanio. 

Lor. Nay, we will slink away in supper-time, 
Disguise us at my lodging, and return 
All in an hour. 

Gra. We have not made good preparation. 710 

Salar. We have not spoke us yet of torch -bearers. 

Salan. Tis vile unless it may be quaintly ordered, 
And better, in my mind, not undertook. 

Lor. 'Tis now but four o'clock, we have two hours 
To furnish us. 

Enter LAUNCELOT with a letter. 

Friend Launcelot, what's the news ? 715 

Laun. An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem to 
signify. [Giving a letter. 

Lor. I know the hand : in faith, 'tis a fair hand, 
And whiter than the paper it writ on 
Is the fair hand that writ. 

Gra. Love-news, in faith. 720 

Laun. By your leave, sir. 

Lor. Whither goest thou ? 

Laun. Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup to- 
night with my new master, the Christian. 

Lor. Hold here, take this : tell gentle Jessica I will not fail 725 
her, speak it privately : [Exit LAUNCELOT. 

Go, gentlemen, 

Will you prepare you for this masque to-night ? 
I am provided of a torch-bearer. 

Salar, Ay, marry, I'll begone about it straight. 730 

Salan. And so will I. 

711. Torch-b'earers.^-Tumess, R. & J., p. 55, quotes Stevens: "Westward 
Hoe, 1607; ' He is just like a torch-bearer to maskers; he wears good 
cloathes, and is ranked in good company, but he doth nothing.' A torch- 
bearer seems to have been a constant appendage on every troop of masks. . . 
Queen Elizabeth's gentlemen pensioners attended her to Cambridge and 
held torches while a play was acted before her in the Chapel of King's Col- 
lege, on a Sunday evening." 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 37 

Lor. Meet me and Gratiano 

At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence. 

Salar. 'Tis good we do so. 

[Exeunt SALARINO tf«^SALANIO. 

Gra. Was not that letter from fair Jessica ? 

Lor. I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed 735 

How I shall take her from her father's house, 
What gold and jewels she is furnished with, 
What page's suit she hath in readiness. 
If e'er the Jew her father come to Heaven, 

It will be for his gentle daughter's sake ; 740 

And never dare misfortune cross her foot, 
Unless she do it under this excuse, 
That she is issue to a faithless Jew. 
Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest : 
Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer. [Exeunt. 745 

Scene V.— The Same. Before Shylock's House. 
Enter Shylock and Launcelot. 

Shy. Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge, 
The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio ; 
What, Jessica ! — thou shalt not gormandize 
As thou hast done with me ; — what, Jessica ! 

And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out. — 750 

Why, Jessica, I say ! 

Laun. Why, Jessica ! 

Shy. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call. 

Laun. Your worship was wont to tell me, 
I could do nothing without bidding. 

Enter Jessica. 

Jes. Call you ? W T hat is your will ? 755 

Shy. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica : 
There are my keys. — But wherefore should I go ? 
I am not bid for love ; they flatter me : 
But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon 
The prodigal Christian. — Jessica, my girl, 760 

743. Faithless. — /. e,, unbelieving. 

749. What.— An exclamation of impatience. "Julius Caesar," act ii. 
sc. i. * 



13^ PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Look to my house. — I am right loath to go : 
There is some ill a brewing towards my rest, 
For I did dream of money-bags to-night. 

Laim. I beseech you, sir, go : my young master doth expect 
your reproach. 765 

Shy. So do I his. 

Laim. And they have conspired together, — I will not say, you 
shall see a masque ; but if you do, then it was not for nothing that 
my nose fell a-bleeding on Black-Monday last, at six o'clock i' 
the morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four 770 
year in th' afternoon. 

Shy. What, are there masques ? — Hear you me, Jessica, 
Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum, 
And the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife, 

Clamber not you up to the casements then, 775 

Nor thrust your head into the public street 
To gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces : 
But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements, 
Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter 

My sober house. — By Jacob's staff I swear, 780 

I have no mind of feasting forth to-night: 
But I will go : — Go you before me, sirrah, 
Say, I will come. 

Laun. I will go.before, sir. — Mistress, look out at window, for 
all this ; 785 

There will come a Christian by, 
Will be worth a Jewess' eye. [Exit. 

Shy. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring ? ha ! 
Jes. His words were, " Farewell, mistress " ; nothing else. 
Shy. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder 790 

769. Black Monday is Easter Monday, and was so called on this oc- 
casion: " In the year 34th Edw. fill., the 14th of April, 1360, and the 
morrow after Easter Day, King Edwarde with his hoast lay before the citie 
of Paris, which day was full darke of mist and haile, and so bitter cold that 
many men died on their horses' backs with the cold ; therefore unto this day 
it hath been called Black Monday." — Stowe's Chronicles, p. 264. 

788. Hagar's offspring. — "This allusion is very appropriate to the de- 
parture of his sen/ant ; Hagar having been bondswoman to Sarah, the wife 
of Abraham, and having quitted her, as Launcelot does Shylock, under the 
supposed grievance of too little indulgence. Gen., chap. xvi. verses 1-9." — 
Farren, p. 24, quoted by Furness. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 139 

Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day 

More than the wild cat : drones hive not with me, 

Therefore I part with him, and part with him 

To one that I would have him help to waste 

His borrowed purse. — Well, Jessica, go in, 795 

Perhaps I will return immediately. 

Do as I bid you ; shut doors after you : 

Fast bind, fast rind ; 

A proverb never stale in thrifty mind. \Exit. 

Jes. Farewell ; and if my fortune be not crost, 800 

I have a father, you a daughter, lost. {Exit. 

Scene VI. — The same. 
Enter GRATIANO and SALARINO, masqued. 

Gra. This is the penthouse, under which Lorenzo 
Desired us to make stand. 

Salar. His hour is almost past. 

Gra. And it is marvel he outdwells his hour, 
For lovers ever run before the clock. 805 

Salar. O ! ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly 
To seal love's bonds new-made, than they are wont 
To keep obliged faith unforfeited ! 

Gra. That ever holds : who riseth from a feast 
With that keen appetite that he sits down ? 810 

Where is the horse that doth untread again 
His tedious measures with the unbated fire 
That he did pace them first ? All things that are, 
Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed. 

How like a younker or a prodigal 815 

The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, 
Hugged and embraced by the strumpet wind ! 
How like the prodigal doth she return, 
With over-weathered ribs and ragged sails, 
Lean, rent, and beggared by the strumpet wind ! 820 

Enter Lorenzo. 

Salar. Here comes Lorenzo : more of this hereafter. 

Lor. Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode ; 
Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait : 
When you shall please to play the thieves for wives 



14© PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

I'll watch as long for you then. — Approach ; 825 

Here dwells my father Jew.— Ho, who's within ? 

Enter JESSICA above, in boys clothes. 

Jes. Who are you ? Tell me for more certainty, 
Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue. 

Lor. Lorenzo, and thy love. 

Jes. Lorenzo, certain ; and my love, indeed, 830 

For who love I so much ? And now who knows 
But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours ? 

Lor. Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art, 

Jes. Here, catch this casket : it is worth the pains. 
I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me, 835 

For I am much ashamed of my exchange : 
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see 
The pretty follies that themselves commit ; 
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush 
To see me thus transformed to a boy. 840 

Lor. Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer. 

Jes i What, must I hold a candle to my shames ? 
They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light. 
Why 'tis an office of discovery, love, 
And I should be obscured. 

Lor. So are you, sweet, 845 

Even in the lovely garnish of a boy. 
But come at once ; 

For the close night doth play the runaway, 
And we are stayed for at Bassanio's feast. 

Jes. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself 850 

With some more ducats, and be with you straight. 

[Exit from above. 

Gra. Now, by my hood, a Gentile, and no Jew. 

Lor. Beshrew me, but I love her heartily ; 
For she is wise, if I can judge of her, 

And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, 855 

And true she is, as she hath proved herself ; 
And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true, 
Shall she be placed in my constant soul. 

Enter Jessica. 

What, art thou come,? — On, gentlemen ; away ! 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 141 

Our masquing mates by this time for us stay. 860 

[Exit with Jessica and Salarino. 

Enter Antonio. 
Ant. Who's there? 

Gra. Signior Antonio ? 

Ant. Fie, fie, Gratiano, where are all the rest ? 
Tis nine o'clock, our friends all stay for you : 

No masque to-night : the wind is come about, 865 

Bassanio presently will go aboard ; 
I have sent twenty out to seek for you. 

Gra. I am glad on't, I desire no more delight 
Than to be under sail and gone to-night. [Exeunt. 

Scene VII.— Belmont. An Apartment in Portia's House. 
Enter Portia, with the Prince of Morocco, and both their Trains. 

For. Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover 870 

The several caskets to this noble prince : — 
Now make your choice. 

Mor. The first, of gold, who this inscription bears, 
" Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire." 
The second, silver, which this promise carries, 875 

" Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves." 
This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt, 
" Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath." 
How shall I know if I do choose the right? 

For. The one of them contains my picture, prince : 880 

If you choose that, then I am yours withal. 

Mor. Some god direct my judgment ! Let me see ; — 
I will survey the inscriptions back again. 
What says this leaden casket ? 

" Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath." 885 

Must give — for what ? for lead ? hazard for lead ? 
This casket threatens. Men that hazard all 
Do it in hope of fair advantages : 
A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross, 

I'll then nor give, nor hazard, aught for lead. 890 

What says the silver with her virgin hue ? 
"Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves." 
As much as he deserves ? — Pause there, Morocco, 



1 4 2 PERIOD OF I TALI A X IXFL UENCE. 

And weigh thy value with an even hand. 

If thou be'st rated by thy estimation, 895 

Thou dost deserve enough ; and yet enough 

May not extend so far as to the lady ; 

And yet to be afearcl of my deserving 

Were but a weak disabling of mvself. 

As much as I deserve ! — Why, that's the lady : 900 

I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes, 

In graces, and in qualities of breeding; 

But more than these, in love I do deserve. 

What if I strayed no further, but chose here? — 

Let*s see once more this saying graved in goid : 905 

" Who chooseih me shall gain what many men desire." 

Why, that's the lady : all the world desires her. 

From the four corners of the earth they come 

To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint. 

The Hyrcanian deserts, and the vasty wilds 910 

Of wild Arabia, are as thoroughfares now 

For princes to come view fair Portia. 

The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head 

Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar 

To stop the foreign spirits, but they come, 915 

As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia. 

One of these three .contains her heavenly picture. 

Is't like, that lead contains her ? 'Twere damnation 

To think so base a thought : it were too gross 

To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave. 920 

Or shall I think in silver she's immured, 

Being ten times undervalued to tried gold ? 

O sinful thought ! Never so rich a gem 

Was set in worse than gold. They have in England 

A coin, that bears the figure of an angel 925 

Stamped in goid, but that's insculped upon ; 

But here an angel in a golden bed 

910. Hyrcanian. — Rolfe says " Hvrcania was an extensive tract of country 
southeast of the Caspian Sea." Shakespeare three times mentions the tigers 
of Hvrcania: "'3 Henry VI..'" act i. sc. 4; "Macbeth," act iii. sc. 4 ; 
" Hamlet," act ii. sc. 2. Cf. Virgil's ' ; ^neid," iv. 367. 

926. Insculped. — '" Insculped upon. Graven on the outside. The angel 
was worth about ten shillings. It had on one side a figure of Michael pierc- 
ing the dragon." 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 43 

Lies all within. Deliver me the key : 
Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may ! 

For. There, take it, prince ; and if my form lie there, 930 

Then I am yours. [He unlocks the golden casket. 

Mor. O hell ! what have we here ? 

A carrion death, within whose empty eye 
There is a written scroll. I'll read the writing. 

[Reads.] All that glisters is not gold ; 

Often have yon heard that told ; 935 

Many a man his life hath sold 
But my outside to behold : 
Gilded tombs do worms infold. 
Had you been as wise as bold, 

Young in limbs, in judgmejit old, 940 

Your answer had not been inscroll'd, 
" Fare you well, your suit is cold." 

Cold, indeed, and labor lost : 

Then, farewell, heat, and, welcome, frost : 

Portia, adieu, I have too grieved a heart, 945 

To take a tedious leave : thus losers part. [Exit. 

For. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains ; go. 
Let all of his complexion choose me so. [Exeunt. 

Scene VIII.— Venice. A Street. 
Enter Salarino and Salanio. 

Salar. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail : 
With him is Gratiano gone along ; 950 

And in their ship, I'm sure, Lorenzo is not. 

Salan. The villain Jew with outcries raised the Duke, 
Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship. 

Salar. He came too late, the ship was under sail : 
But there the Duke was given to understand 955 

That in a gondola were seen together 
Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica. 
Besides, Antonio certified the Duke 
They were not with Bassanio in his ship. 

Salan. I never heard a passion so confused, 960 

So strange, outrageous, and so variable, 
As the dog Jew did utter in the streets : 
" My daughter !— O my ducats !—0 my daughter ! 



1 44 PERIOD OF IT A LI A N I NFL UENCE. 

Fled with a Christian ! — O my Christian ducats ! 

Justice ! the law ! my ducats, and my daughter ! 965 

A sealed bag, two sealed hags of ducats, 

Of double ducats, stolen from me by my daughter ! 

And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones, 

Stolen by my daughter ! — Justice ! find the girl ! 

She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats ! " 970 

Salar. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him, 
Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats. 

Salan. Let good Antonio look he keep his day, 
Or he shall pay for this. 

Salar. Marry, well remembered. 

I reasoned with a Frenchman yesterday, 975 

Who told me, in the narrow seas that part 
The French and English, there miscarried 
A vessel of our country richly fraught. 
I thought upon Antonio when he told me, 
And wished in silence that it were not his. 980 

Salan. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear ; 
Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him. 

Salar. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth. 
I saw Bassanio and Antonio part : 

Bassanio told him he would make some speed 985 

Of his return : he answered — " Do not so ; 
Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio, 
But stay the very riping of the time ; 
And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me, 

Let it not enter in your mind of love ; \ 990 

Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts 
To courtship and such fair ostents of love 
As shall conveniently become you there." 
And even there, his eye being big with tears, 

Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, 995 

And with affection wondrous sensible 
He wrung Bassanio's hand ; and so they parted. 

Salan. I think he only loves the world for him. 
I pray thee, let us go and find him out, 

And quicken his embraced heaviness 1000 

With some delight or other. 

Salar. Do we so. [Exeunt. 

996. Sensible. — Full of feeling, tender. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 45 

Scene IX.— Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. 
Enter Nerissa, with a Servitor. 

Ner. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight, 
The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath, 
And comes to his election presently. 

Enter the Prince of Arragon, Portia, and their Trams. 
Flourish cornets. 

For. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble prince : 1005 

If you choose that wherein I am contained, 
Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemnised ; 
But if you fail, without more speech, my lord, 
You must be gone from hence immediately. 

Ar. I am enjoined by oath to observe three things : 1010 

First, never to unfold to any one 
Which casket 'twas I choose; next, if I fail 
Of the right casket, never in my life 
To woo a maid in way of marriage ; 
Lastly, 

If I do fail in fortune of my choice, 1015 

Immediately to leave you and be gone. 

For. To these injunctions every one doth swear 
That comes to hazard for my worthless self. 

Ar. And so have I addressed me. Fortune now 
To my heart's hope ! — Gold, silver, and base lead, 1020 

" Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath : " 
You shall look fairer, ere I give, or hazard. 
What says the golden chest ? ha ! let me see : — 
" Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire." 
What many men desire : — that many may be meant 1025 

By the fool multitude, that choose by show, 
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, . 
Which pries not to the interior, but, like the martlet, 
Builds in the weather on the outward wall, 

Even in the force and road of casualty. 1030 

I will not choose what many men desire, 
Because I will not jump with common spirits 
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes. 
Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house ; 
Tell me once more what title thou dost bear : 1035 

1028. Martlet — A bird like our swallow. See " Macbeth," act i. sc. 7. 



146 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

" Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves." 

And well said too ; for who shall go about 

To cozen fortune and be honourable 

Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume 

To wear an undeserved dignity : 1040 

! that estates, degrees, and offices, 

Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour 

Were purchased by the merit of the wearer ! 

How many then should cover that stand bare ; 

How many be commanded that command ; 1045 

How much low peasantry would then be gleaned 

From the true seed of honour ; and how much honour 

Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times, 

To be new-varnished ! Well, but to my choice : 

"Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves." 1050 

1 will assume desert. — Give me a key for this, 
And instantly unlock my fortunes here. 

[He opens the silver casket. 

For. Too long a pause for that which 3 r ou find there. 

Ar. What's here ? the portrait of a blinking idiot, 
Presenting me a schedule ! I will read it. 1055 

How much unlike art thou to Portia ! 
How much unlike my hopes and my deservings ! 
" Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves : " 
Did I deserve no more than a fool's head ? 
Is that my prize ? are my deserts no better ? 1060 

For. To offend and judge are distinct offices, 
And of opposed natures. 

Ar. What is here ? 

[Reads'] The fire seven times tried this, 

Seven times tried that judgment is 

That did never choose amiss. 1065 

Some there be that shadows kiss, 

Such have bat a shadows bliss : 

There be fools alive, I wis, 

Silvered o'er, and so was this : 

Take what wife you will to bed 1070 

I will ever be your head : 

So be gone ; you are sped. 

1041. Estates. — " Not property, but dignity — status." Furness. 
1044. Cover. — "Wear their hats as masters." Clarendon. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 147 

Still more fool I shall appear 
By the time I linger here : 

With one fool's head I came to woo, 1075 

But I go away with two- 
Sweet, adieu. I'll keep my oath, 
Patiently to bear my wroth. 

{Exeunt ARRAGON and Train. 

For. Thus hath the candle singed the moth. 
O, these deliberate fools, when they do choose 1080 

They have the wisdom by their wit to lose. 

Ner. The ancient saying is no heresy, 
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny. 

For. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa. 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mes. Where is my lady ? 

For. Here, what would my lord ? 1085 

Mes. Madam, there is alighted at your gate 
A young Venetian, one that comes before 
To signify the approaching of his lord. 
From whom he bringeth sensible regreets, 

To wit (besides commends and courteous breath) 1090 

Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen 
So likely an ambassador of love : 
A day in April never came so sweet, 
To show how costly summer was at hand, 
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord. 1095 

For. No more, I pray thee, I am half afeard 
Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee. 
Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him. 
Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see 
Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly. 1100 

Ner. Bassanio lord,— Love, if thy will it be ! 

{Exeunt. 

ACT III. 

Scene I.— Venice. A Street. 

Enter Salanio and Salarino. 

Satan. Now, what news on the Rialto ? 

Salar. Why, yet it lives there unchecked, that Antonio hath 



148 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

a ship of rich lading wrecked on the narrow seas ; the Good- 
wins, I think they call the place, a very dangerous flat, and fatal, 1105 
where the carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, 
if my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word. 

Salan. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever 
knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the 
death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips of 11 10 
prolixity, or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good 
Antonio, the honest Antonio— O, that I had a title good enough 
to keep his name company 

Salar. Come, the full stop. 

Salan. Ha, what say est thou ? Why, the end is, he hath lost 1015 
a ship. 

Salar. I would it might prove the end of his losses. 

Salan. Let me say " amen " betimes, lest the devil cross my 
prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew. 

Enter Shylock. 

How now, Shylock, what news among the merchants ? 1120 

Shy. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my 
daughter's flight. 

Salar. That's certain : I, for my part, knew the tailor that 
made the wings she flew withal. 

Salan. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was 1125 
fledged ; and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the 
dam. 

Shy. She is damned for it. 

Salar. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge. 

Shy. My own flesh and blood to rebel ! 1130 

Salan. Out upon it, old carrion, rebels it at these years ? 

1 104. Narrow seas. — The English Channel. 

1105. Goodwins. — Goodwin Sands, off the coast of Kent ; see ref. " King 
John," act v. sc. 5. 

1 105. I think they call the place. — Sal arino's doubt about the name is an 
artistic way of reminding us, first that an Italian, not an Englishman, is 
speaking : the scene is in Venice ; second, of the time covered by the play. 
Antonio's ship has had time to sail from Venice to England, be wrecked, 
and the news reported again at Venice. 

1 109. Knapped ginger. — Nibbled ginger. — That gossips, i. e., old women, 
were fond of ginger may be inferred from " Meas. for Meas.," act iv. sc. 3. — 
Furness. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 149 

Shy. I say my daughter is my flesh and blood. 

Salar. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers 
than between jet and ivory ; more between your bloods than 
there is between red wine and rhenish. But tell us, do you hear, 
whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no? 1135 

Shy. There I have another bad match ; a bankrupt, a prodi- 
gal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto ; a beggar, 
that used to come so smug upon the mart : Let him look to his 
bond : he was wont to call me usurer ; let him look to his bond : 
he was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him 1 140 
look to his bond. 

Salar. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his 
flesh ; what's that good for? 

Shy. To bait fish withal ; if it will feed nothing else, it will 
feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half 1 145 
a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned 
my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated 
mine enemies ; and what's his reason ? I am a Jew. Hath not 
a Jew eyes ? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, 
affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the 11 50 
same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same 
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as 
a Christian is ? If you prick us, do we not bleed ? if you tickle 
us, do we not laugh ? if you poison us, do we not die? and if 
you wrong us, shall we not revenge ? If we are like you in the 1 1 55 
rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, 
what is his humility? revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, 
what should his sufferance be by Christian example ? why, 
revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute ; and it shall 
go hard but I will better the instruction. 1160 

E?iter a Servant. 
Serv. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and 
desires to speak with you both. 

Salar. We have been up and down to seek him. 
Satan. Here comes another of the tribe, a third cannot be 
matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew. 1165 

[Exeunt Salanio, Salarino, and Servant. 

Enter TUBAL. 
Shy. How now, Tubal ? what news from Genoa ? Hast thou 
found my daughter ? 



ISO PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Tub. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find 
her. 

Shy. Why there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, 1170 
cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort. The curse never 
fell upon our nation till now ; I never felt it till now ; two thou- 
sand ducats in that, and other precious, precious jewels. I 
would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her 
ear ! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her 1175 
coffin ! No news of them ? — Why, so ; and I know not what's 
spent in the search : why, thou loss upon loss ! the thief gone with 
so much, and so much to find the thief, and no satisfaction, no 
revenge ; nor no ill luck stirring, but what lights o' my shoulders ; 
no sighs, but o' my breathing : no tears, but o' my shedding. 11 80 

Tub. Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in 
Genoa ■ 

Shy. What, what, what ? ill luck, ill luck ? 

Tub. hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis. 

Shy. I thank God ! I thank God ! Is it true ? is it true ? 1185 

Tub. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the 
wreck. 

Shy. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news : — 
Ha, ha ! . . . hear ... in Genoa ? 

Tub. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard,, one night, 1190 
fourscore ducats. 

Shy. Thou stick'st a dagger in me. I shall never see my 
gold again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting ! fourscore ducats ! 

Tub. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my com- 
pany to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break. 1195 

Shy. I am very glad of it : I'll plague him ; I'll torture him ; 
I am glad of it. 

Tub. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your 
daughter for a monkey. 

Shy. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal : it was my 1200 
turquoise ; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor. I would 
not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys. 

1 189. Hear. — Here, in quartos. Furness suggests that Shylock feared 
to trust the rumor of Antonio's loss referred to in the opening of this scene 
as living unchecked on the Rialto and which he must have heard. He is 
too wily to speak of it when talking with Salarino. He accepts it only when 
referred to by Tubal, who spoke with the escaped sailors, " here" in Genoa." 

1200. See Introduction to " Merchant of Venice," p. 113. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 151 

Tub. But Antonio is certainly undone. 

Shy. Nay, that's true, that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an 
officer, bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart 1205 
of him, if he forfeit ; for were he out of Venice, I can make what 
merchandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our syna- 
gogue : go, good Tubal ; at our synagogue, Tubal. {Exeunt. 

Scene II.— Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. 
Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, Nerissa, and Attendants. 

For. I pray you, tarry ; pause a day or two 
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong 12 10 

I lose your company ; therefore, forbear awhile. 
There's something tells me, but it is not love, 
I would not lose you, — and you know yourself, 
Hate counsels not in such a quality ; 

But lest you should not understand me well 121 5 

(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought) 
I would detain you here some month or two 
Before you venture for me. I could teach you 
How to choose right, — but then I am forsworn ; 

So will I never be : so may you miss me : 1220 

But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, 
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, 
They have o'erlooked me, and divided me : 
One half of me is yours, the other half yours, 

Mine own, I would say ; but if mine, then yours, 1225 

And so all yours. O, these naughty times 
Put bars between the owners and their rights ; 
And so, though yours, not yours ; — prove it so, 
Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I. 

I speak too long ; but 'tis to peise the time, 1230 

To eke it and to draw it out in length, 
To stay you from election. 

Bass. Let me choose, 

For as I am, I live upon the rack. 

For. Upon the rack, Bassanio : then confess 
What treason there is mingled with your love. 1235 

1230. Peise. — Stevens says : "From the Fr. peser, and therefore means 
to retard by hanging- weights." See " Richard TIL," act v. sc. 3, 105; " King 

1230. Hack.— Hunter nonces that in politics and morals Shakespeare is 



1 5 2 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFL UEXCE. 

Bass. None, but that ugly treason of mistrust 
Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love. 
There may as well be amity and life 
'Tween snow and fire as treason and my love. 

Por. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, 1240 

Where men enforced do speak anything. 

Bass. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth. 

Por. W T ell then, confess and live. 

Bass. Confess and love, 

Had been the very sum of my confession : 

happy torment, when my torturer 1245 
Doth teach me answers for deliverance : 

But let me to my fortune and the caskets. 

[Curtain drawn from before the caskets?^ 
Por. Away then, I am locked in one of them, 
If you do love me, you will rind me out. 

Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof. 1250 

Let music sound, while he doth make his choice, 
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, 
Fading in music. That the comparison 
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream 
And watery deathbed for him. He may win ; 1255 

And what is music then ? then music is 
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow 
To a new-crowned monarch ; such it is, 
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day 

That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear, 1260 

And summon him to marriage. — Now 7 he goes, 
With no less presence but with much more love 
Than young Alcides when he did redeem 
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy 

To the sea-monster : I stand for sacrifice, 1265 

The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives, 
With bleared visages, come forth to view 
The issue of the exploit : go, Hercules, 
Live thou, I live : — with much, much more dismay, 

1 view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray. 1270 

always on the side of justice and humanity. That while this sentiment 
would find approval in these times, it would not be agreeable to the public 
officials of his own day who were then employing torture in the tower of 
London. He speaks of it as a "bold utterance." See Furness, " Merchant 
of Venice," p. 13S. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. I$3 

A song, the whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to hwiself. 

Tell me where is fancy bred, 

Or in the heart, or in the head ? 

How begot, how nourished f 
Reply, reply. 

It is enge?idered in the eyes, 1275 

With gazing fed, and fancy dies 

I?i the cradle where it lies, 

Let us all ring fancy's knell : 
Til begin it, — Ding, do?ig, bell. 
All. Ding, dong, bell. 1280 

Bass. So may the outward shows be least themselves : 
The world is still deceived with ornament. 
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt 
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, 

Obscures the show of evil ? In religion, 1285 

What damned error but some sober brow 
Will bless it and approve it with a text, 
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament ? 
There is no viee'so simple but assumes 

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts. 1290 

How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false 
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins 
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, 
Who, inward searched, have livers white as milk, 
And these assume but valour's excrement, 1295 

To render them redoubted. Look on beauty, 
And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight, 
Which therein works a miracle in nature, 
Making them lightest that wear most of it : 

So are those crisped snaky golden locks, 1300 

Which make such wanton gambols with the wind 
Upon supposed fairness, often known 
To be the dowry of a second head, 
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. 

Thus ornament is but a guiled shore 1305 

To a most dangerous sea ; the beauteous scarf 
Veiling an Indian beauty ; in a word, 
The seeming truth which cunning times put on 
To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, 



154 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee ; 1310 

Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge 

'Tween man and man : but thou, thou meagre lead, 

Which rather threat'nest than dost promise aught, 

Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence, 

And here choose I. Joy be the consequence! 131 5 

Par. How all the other passions fleet to air, 
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair, 
And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy ! 

love, be moderate, allay thy ecstacy, 

In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess : 1320 

1 feel too much thy blessing ! make it less, 
For fear I surfeit ! 

Bass. What find I here ? 

[Opening the leaden casket. 
Fair Portia's counterfeit. What demigod 
Hath come so near creation ? Move these eyes ? 
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, 1325 

Seem they in motion ? Here are severed lips 
Parted with sugar breath, so sweet a bar 
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs, 
The painter plays the spicier and hath woven 

A golden mesh to .entrap the hearts of men . 1330 

Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes, 
How could he see to do them ? having made one 
Methinks it should have power to steal both his, 
And leave itself unfurnished : yet look, how far 

The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow 1335 

In underprizing it, so far this shadow 
Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll, 
The continent and summary of my fortune : 

[Reads. ~] You that choose not by the view, 

Chance as fair, and choose as true, 134° 

Since this fortune falls to you, 
Be content, and seek no new. 
If you be well pleased with this, 

1323. Counterfeit. — Meaning likeness. See ''Hamlet ": " Look here, upon 

this picture, and on this — the counterfeit presentment of two brothers ; " act 
hi. sc. 4 ; and also Shakespeare's Sonnet xvi. 8 : " Your painted coun- 
terfeit." 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 155 

And hold your fortune f 07- your bliss, 

Turn you where your Lady is, 1345 

And claim her with a loving kiss. 

A gentle scroll. — Fair lady, by your leave, 

I come by note, to give and to receive. {Kissing her. 

Like one of two contending in a prize, 

That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes, 1350 

Hearing applause, and universal shout, 

Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt 

Whether those peals of praise be his or no ; 

So, thrice fair lady, stand I, even so, 

As doubtful whether what I see be true, 1355 

Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you. 

For. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, 
Such as I am : though for myself alone 
I would not be ambitious in my wish, 

To wish myself much better, yet for you 1360 

I would be trebled twenty times myself ; 
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich ; 
That, only to stand high in your account, 
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, 

Exceed account : but the full sum of me 1365 

Is sum of nothing ; which, to term in gross, 
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised, 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; happier than this, 

She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 1370 

Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed, 
As from her lord, her governor, her king. 
Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours 

Is now converted : but now I was the lord 1375 

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, 
Queen o'er myself ; and even now, but now, 
This house, these servants, and this same myself, 
Are yours, my lord. I give them with this ring, 

Which when you part from, lose, or give away, 1380 

Let it presage the ruin of your love 
And be my vantage to exclaim on you. 

Bass. Madam, you have bereft me of all words, 



156' PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Only my blood speaks to you in my veins, 

And there is such confusion in my powers 1385 

As after some oration, fairly spoke 

By a beloved prince, there doth appear 

Among the buzzing pleased multitude; 

Where every something, being blent together, 

Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy, 1390 

Expressed, and not expressed. But when this ring 

Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence : 

O, then be bold to say, Bassanio's dead. 

Ner. My lord and lady, it is now our time, 
That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper, 1395 

To cry, good joy. Good joy, my lord and lady ! 

Gra. My lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady, 
I wish you all the joy that you can wish ; 
For, I am sure, you can wish none from me, 

And, when your honours mean to solemnize 1400 

The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you 
Even at that time I may be married too. 

Bass. With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife. 

Gra. I thank your lordship, you have got me one, 
My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours, — 1405 

You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid ; 
You loved, I loved for intermission. 
No more pertains to me, my lord, than you. 
Your fortune stood upon the caskets there, 

And so did mine too, as the matter falls ; 1410 

For wooing here until I sweat again, 
And swearing till my very roof was dry 
With oaths of love, at last, if promise last, 
I got a promise of this fair one here, 

To have her love, provided that your fortune 141 5 

Achieved her mistress. 

For. Is this true, Nerissa ? 

Ner. Madam, it is, so you stand pleased withal. 

Bass. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith? 

Gra. Yes, faith, my lord. 

Bass. Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage. 1420 

Gra. But who comes here ? Lorenzo, and his infidel ? 
What ! and my old Venetian friend Salerio ? 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 15 7 

Enter Lorenzo, Jessica, and Salerio. 

Bass. Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither, 
If that the youth of my new interest here 

Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave 1425 

I bid my very friends and countrymen, 
Sweet Portia, welcome. 

Par. So do I, my lord; 

They are entirely welcome. 

Lor. I thank your honour. — For my part, my lord, 
My purpose was not to have seen you here ; 143° 

But meeting with Salerio by the way, 
He did entreat me, past all saying nay, 
To come with him along. 

Saler. I did, my lord, 

And I have reason for it. — Signior Antonio 
Commends him to you. {Gives Bassanio a letter. 

Bass. Ere I ope his letter, 1435 

I pray you, tell me how my good friend doth. 

Saler. Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind ; 
Nor well, unless in mind ; his letter there 
Will show you his estate. [Bassanio reads the letter. 

Gra. Nerissa, cheer yon stranger ; bid her welcome. 1440 

Your hand, Salerio. What's the news from Venice ? 
How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio ? 
I know he will be glad of our success ; 
We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece. 

Saler. I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost ! 1445 

For. There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper, 
That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek : 
Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world 
Could turn so much the constitution 

Of any constant man. What, worse and worse ? — 1450 

With leave, Bassanio ; I am half yourself, 
And I must freely have the half of anything 
That this same paper brings you. 

Bass. O sweet Portia, 

Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words 

That ever blotted paper. Gentle lady, 1455 

When I did first impart my love to you, 
I freely told you, all the wealth I had 



1 5 8 PERIOD OF ITALIAN I NFL UENCE. 

Ran in my veins,— I was a gentleman : 

And then I told you true, and yet, dear lady, 

Rating myself at nothing, you shall see 1460 

How much I was a braggart. When I told you, 

My state was nothing, I should then have told you, 

That I was worse than nothing ; for indeed, 

I have engaged myself to a dear friend, 

Engaged my friend to his mere enemy, 1465 

To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady ; 

The paper as the body of my friend, 

And every word in it a gaping wound, 

Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio ? 

Have all his ventures failed ? What, not one hit ? 1470 

From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England, 

From Lisbon, Barbary, and India, 

And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch 

Of merchant-marring rocks ? 

Saler. . Not one, my lord. 

Besides, it should appear, that if he had 1475 

The present money to discharge the Jew, 
He would not take it. Never did I know 
A creature, that did bear the shape of man, 
So keen and greedy to confound a man, 

He plies the Duke* at morning and at night, 1480 

And doth impeach the freedom of the state 
If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants, 
The Duke himself, and the magnificoes 
Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him, 

But none can drive him from the envious plea 1485 

Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond. 

Jes. When I was with him I have heard him swear 
To Tubal, and to Chus, his countrymen, 
That he would rather have Antonio's flesh 

Then twenty times the value of the sum 149° 

That he did owe him ; and I know, my lord, 
If law, authority, and power deny not, 
It will go hard with poor Antonio. 

For. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble ? 

Bass. The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, 1495 

The best-conditioned and unwearied spirit 
In doing courtesies ; and one in whom 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 59 

The ancient Roman honour more appears, . 

Than any that draws breath in Italy. 

For. What sum owes he the Jew ? 1500 

Bass. For me, three thousand ducats. 

Par. What, no more ? 

Pay him six thousand and deface the bond : 
Double six thousand, and then treble that, 
Before a friend of this description 

Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault. I5°5 

First go with me to church, and call me wife, 
And then away to Venice to your friend ; 
For never shall you lie by Portia's side 
With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold 

To pay the petty debt twenty times over. 15 10 

When it is paid, bring- your true friend along ; 
My maid Nerissa, and myself, meantime, 
Will live as maids and widows. Come away, 
For you shall hence upon your wedding-day. 

Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer ; 151 5 

Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear. — 
But let me hear the letter of your friend. 

Bass. [Beads.] Sweet Bassanio,. My skips have all miscarried, 
my creditors groiu cruel, my estate is very low ; my bond to the 
Jezu is forfeit, and since in payi?ig it, it is impossible I should 1520 
live, all debts are cleared between you and I if I might but see 
yon at my death. Notwithstaiiding, use your pleasure : if your 
love do not persuade you to coine, let not my letter. 

For. O love, despatch all business, and be gone. 

Bass. Since I have your good leave to go away, 1525 

I will make haste ; but till I come again, 
No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay, 
Nor rest be interposer 'twixt us twain. 

[Exeunt. 
Scene III.— Venice. A Street. 
Enter Shylock, Salarino, Antonio, and Gaoler. 

Shy. Gaoler, look to him : tell not me of mercy. 
This is the fool that lent out money gratis. I 53° 

Gaoler, look to him. 

Ant. Hear me yet, good Shylock. 

Shy. I'll have my bond ; speak not against my bond. 
I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond. 



160 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause, 

But since I am a dog, beware my fangs. 1535 

The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder, 

Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond 

To come abroad with him at his request. 

Ant. I pray thee, hear me speak. 

Shy. I'll have my bond : I will not hear thee speak: 1540 

I'll have my bond : and therefore speak no more. 
I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool, 
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield 
To Christian intercessors. Follow not ; 
I'll have no speaking: I will have my bond. [Exit. 1545 

Salar. It is the most impenetrable cur 
That ever kept with men. 

Ant. Let him alone: 

I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers. 
He seeks my life ; his reason well I know ; 

I oft delivered from his forfeitures 1550 

Many that have at times made moan to me; 
Therefore he hates me. 

Salar. I am sure, the Duke 

Will never grant this forfeiture to hold. 

Ant. The Duke cannot deny the course of law : 
For the commodity that strangers have 1555 

With us in Venice, if it be denied, 
Will much impeach the justice of the state, 
Since that the trade and profit of the city 
Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go : 

These griefs and losses have so bated me 1560 

That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh 
To-morrow to my bloody creditor. — 

1537- Naughty. — Rolfe says : " This word was formerly used in a much 
stronger sense than at present. In ' Much Ado,' v. 2, the villain Borachio 
is called a 'naughty man,' and Gloster, in ' Lear,' iii. 7, when the cruel 
Regan plucks his beard, addresses her as ' Naughty Lady ! ' Cf. Proverbs 
vi. 12 ; 1 Sam. xvii. 28 ; James i. 21. Below, v. 1, a ' naughty world,' — a 
wicked world." 

1537. Fond. — Foolish, silly. This is the original meaning of the word. 
See " Lear," act iv. sc. 7 : "lam a very foolish fond old man." See Skeat. 
Etymolog. Diet. 

1555. See Introduction to " Merchant of Venice," p. 109. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. l6l 

Well, gaoler, on. — Pray God, Bassanio come 

To see me pay his debt, and then I care not ! [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. 
Enter Portia, Nerissa, Lorenzo, Jessica, and Balthazar. 

Lor. Madam, although I speak it in your presence, 1565 

You have a noble and a true conceit 
Of god-like amity ; which appears most strongly 
In bearing thus the absence of your lord. 
But, if you knew to whom you show this honour, 
How true a gentleman you send relief, 1570 

How dear a lover of my lord, your husband, 
I know, you would be prouder of the work 
Than customary bounty can enforce you. 

For. I never did repent for doing good, 
Nor shall not now : for in companions 1575 

That do converse and waste the time together, 
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love, 
There must be needs a like proportion 
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit ; 

Which makes me think that this Antonio, 1580 

Being the bosom lover of my lord, 
Must needs be like my lord. If it be so, 
How little is the cost I have bestowed 
In purchasing the semblance of my soul 

From out the state of hellish cruelty ! 1585 

T lis comes too near the praising of myself ; 
Therefore, no more of it : hear other things. 
Lorenzo, I commit into your hands 
The husbandry and manage of my house 

Until my lord's return : for mine own part, 1590 

I have toward heaven breathed a secret vow 
To live in prayer and contemplation 
Only attended by Nerissa here, 
Until her husband and my lord's return. 

There is a monastery two miles off-, 1595 

And there we will abide. I do desire you 
Not to deny this imposition 
The which my love and some necessity 
Now lays upon you. 



1 6 2 PERIOD OF IT A LI A N I NFL UENCE. 

Lor. Madam, with all my heart 

I shall obey you in all fair commands. 1600 

For. My people do already know my mind, 
And will acknowledge you and Jessica 
In place of Lord Bassanio and myself. 
So fare you well till we shall meet again. 

Lor. Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you ! 1605 

Jes. I wish your ladyship all heart's content. 

Lor. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleased 
To wish it back on you : fare you well, Jessica. 

[Exeunt Jessica and Lorenzo. 

Now, Balthazar, 
As I have ever found thee honest-true, 161 o 

So let me find thee still. Take this same letter, 
And use thou all the endeavour of a man 
In speed to Padua : see thou render this 
Into my cousin's hand, Doctor Bellario ; 

And look, what notes and garments he doth give thee, 1615 

Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed 
Unto the tranect, to the common ferry 
Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words, 
But get thee gone : I shall be there before thee. 

Bal. Madam, I 'go with all convenient speed. 1620 

[Exit. 

For. Come on, Nerissa : I have work in hand 
That you yet know not of. We'll see our husbands 
Before they think of us. 

Ner. Shall they see us ? 

For. They shall, Nerissa ; but in such a habit, 
That they shall think we are accomplished 1625 

With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager, 
When we are both accoutred like young men, 
I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two ; 
And wear my dagger with the braver grace ; 

161 7. Tranect. — Rolfe says : " This is the reading of the old editions, but 
the word occurs nowhere else. It may be a misprint for 'traject,' as Rowe 
suggested. This would be the English equivalent of the French trajet 
Italian, traghetio." Coryat (Crudities) says : " There are in Venice thirteen 
ferries or passages, which they commonly call traghetto, where passengers 
may be transported in a gondola to what part of the city they will. K. thinks 
the tranect was the tow-boat of the ferry." 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 163 

And speak between the change of man and boy 1630 

With a reed voice ; and turn two mincing steps 

Into a manly stride ; and speak of frays, 

Like a fine bragging youth ; and tell quaint lies, 

How honourable ladies sought my love, 

Which I denying, they fell sick and died, 1635 

I could not do withal : then I'll repent, 

And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them. 

And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell, 

That men shall swear I have discontinued school 

Above a twelvemonth. I have within my mind 1640 

A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, 

Which I will practise. 

But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device 

When I am in my coach, which stays for us 

At the park gate ; and therefore haste away, 1645 

For we must measure twenty miles to-day. {Exeunt. 

Scene V.— The Same. A Garden. 
Enter Launcelot and Jessica. 

Latin. Yes, truly ; for, look you, the sins of the father are to 
be laid upon the children ; therefore, I promise you, I fear you. 
I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation 
of the matter : therefore, be of good cheer ; for, truly, I think 1650 
you are damned. There is but one hope in it that can do you 
any good. 

Jes. And what hope is that, I pray thee ? 

Laun. Marry, you may partly hope that you are not the Jew's 
daughter. 1655 

Jes. So the sins of my mother should be visited upon me. 

Latin. Truly then I fear you are damned both by father and 
mother : thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into 
Charybdis, your mother. Well, you are gone, both ways. 

Jes. I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a 1660 
Christian. 

Latm. Truly, the more to blame he : we were Christians 
enow before ; e'en as many as could well live one by another. 
This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs : if we 
grow all to be porkeaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on 1665 
the coals for money. 



164 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Jes. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say : here he 
comes. 

Enter Lorenzo. 

Lor. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot. 

Jes. Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo, Launcelot and I are 1670 
out. He tells me flatly, there is no mercy for me in heaven be- 
cause I am a Jew's daughter : and he says, you are no good 
member of the commonwealth, for, in converting Jews to Chris- 
tians you raise the price of pork. 

Lor. I think, the best grace of wit will shortly turn into 1675 
silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but 
parrots. Go in, sirrah ; bid them prepare for dinner. 

Laun. That is done, sir ; they have all stomachs. 

Lor. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you ! then bid them 
prepare dinner. 1680 

Laun. That is done too, sir ; only cover is the word. 

Lor. Will you cover then, sir ? 

Laun. Not so, sir, neither ; I know my duty. 

Lor. Yet more quarreling with occasion ? Wilt thou show the 
whole wealth of thy wit in an instant ? I pray thee, understand 1685 
a plain man in his plain meaning : go to thy fellows, bid them 
cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner. 

Latin. For the table, sir, it shall be served in ; for the meat, 
sir, it shall be covered ; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, 
let it be as humours and conceits shall govern. {Exit. 1690 

Lor. O dear discretion, how his words are suited ! 
The fool hath planted in his memory 
An army of good words ; and I do know 
A many fools, that stand in better place, 

Garnished like him, that for a tricksy word 1695 

Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica ? 
And now, good sweet, say thy opinion, 
How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife ? 

Jes. Past all expressing. It is very meet 
The Lord Bassanio live an upright life, 1700 

For, having such a blessing in his lady, 
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth ; 
And, if on earth he do not mean it, then 
In reason he should never come to heaven. 

Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match, 1705 

And on the wager ky two earthly women, 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 165 

And Portia one, there must be something else 
Pawned with the other, for the poor rude world 
Hath not her fellow. 

Lor. Even such a husband 

Hast thou of me, as she is for a wife. 1710 

Jes. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that. 

Lor. I will anon ; first, let us go to dinner. 

Jes. Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach. 

Lor. No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk ; 
Then, howsoe'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things 171 5 

I shall digest it. 

Jes. Well, I'll set you forth. [Exeunt. 

ACT IV. 

SCENE I.— Venice. A Court of Justice. 

Enter t fie Duke; the Magnificoes ; Antonio, Bassanio, Grati- 
ano, Salarino, Salerio, and others. 

Duke. What, is Antonio here ? 

Ant. Ready, so please your grace. 

Duke. I am sorry for thee : thou art come to answer 
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch 1720 

Uncapable of pity, void and empty 
From any dram of mercy. 

Ant. I have heard 

Your grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify 
His rigorous course ; but since he stands obdurate, 
And that no lawful means can carry me 1725 

Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose 
My patience to his fury, and am armed 
To suffer with a quietness of spirit 
The very tyranny and rage of his. 

Duke. Go one, and call the Jew into the court. 1730 

Salar, He's ready at the door. He comes, my lord. 

Enter SHYLOCK. 

Duke. Make room, and let him stand before our face. 
Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too, 
That thou but lead'st this fashion of thy malice 

To the last hour of act ; and then, 'tis thought, 1735 

Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse more strange 



1 6 6 PERIOD OF I TA LI A N IX FL UENCE. 

Than is thy strange apparent cruelty ; 

And where thou now exact'st the penalty, 

Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh, 

Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture, 1740 

But, touched with human gentleness and love, 

Forgive a moiety of the principal ; 

Glancing an eye of pity on his losses 

That have of late so huddled on his back, 

Enow to press a royal merchant down 1745 

And pluck commiseration of his state 

From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint, 

From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never trained 

To offices of tender courtesy. 

We all expect a gentle answer. Jew. 1750 

Shy. I have possessed your grace of what I purpose ; 
And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn 
To have the due and forfeit of my bond : 
If you deny it, let the danger light 

Upon your charter and your city's freedom. 1755 

You'll ask me, why I rather choose to have 
A weight of carrion flesh, than to receive 
Three thousand ducats ? I'll not answer that, 
But, say, it is my humour : is it answered ? 

What if my house be troubled with a rat, 1760 

And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats 
To have it baned ? What, are you answered yet ? 
Some men there are love not a gaping pig ; 
Some that are mad if they behold a cat ; 

Masters of passion, sway it to the mood 1765 

Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer. 
As there is no firm reason to be rendered, 
Why he cannot abide a gaping pig ; 
Why he, a harmless necessary cat ; 

So can I give no reason, nor I will not, 1770 

More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing 
I bear Antonio, that I follow thus 
A losing suit against him. Are you answered ? 

Bass. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man, 
To excuse the current of thy cruelty. 1775 

1762. Baned. — Destroyed, poisoned. A.-S.,bana, a murderer; rats-bane, 
rat poison, 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 167 

Shy. I am not bound to please thee with my answer. 

Bass. Do all men kill the things they do not love ? 

Shy. Hates any man the thing he would not kill ? 

Bass. Every offence is not a hate at first. 

Shy. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice ? 1780 

Ant. I pray you, think you question with the Jew. 
You may as well go stand upon the beach 
And bid the main flood bate his usual height ; 
You may as well use question with the wolf 

Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb ; 1785 

You may as well forbid the mountain pines 
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise 
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven ; 
You may as well do anything most hard 

As seek to soften that (than which what's harder ?) 1790 

His Jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you, 
Make no more offers, use no further means ; 
But with all brief and plain conveniency, 
Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will. 

Bass. For thy three thousand ducats here is six. 1795 

Shy. If every ducat in six thousand ducats 
Were in six parts, and every part a ducat, 
I would not draw them : I would have my bond. 

Duke. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none ? 

Shy. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong ? 1800 

You have among you many a purchased slave, 
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, 
You use in abject and in slavish parts 
Because you bought them : — shall I say to you, 

Let them be free ; marry them to your heirs ? 1805 

Why sweat they under burdens ? let their beds 
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates 
Be seasoned with such viands ? You will answer, 
The slaves are ours. So do I answer you : 

The pound of flesh which I demand of him 1810 

Is dearly bought ; 'tis mine, and I will have it. 

1799. How shalt thou hope, etc. ) 

1800. What judgment shall I dread, etc. S 

They express accurately the different feeling of the Christian and the Jew. 
They'not only anticipate the point on which this scene turns, but sum up 
concisely the central motive of the play. See Introd. p. no, supra. 



1 6 8 PERIOD OF I TA LI A iV I NFL UENCE, 

If you deny me, fie upon your law ! 

There is no force in the decrees of Venice. 

I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it? 

Duke. Upon my power I may dismiss this court, 1815 

Unless Bellario, a learned doctor 
Whom I have sent for to determine this, 
Come here to-day. 

Salar. My lord, here stays without 

A messenger with letters from the doctor, 
New come from Padua. 1820 

Duke. Bring us the letters ; call the messenger. 

Bass. Good cheer, Antonio ! What, man, courage yet! 
The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all, 
Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood. 

Ant. I am a tainted wether of the flock, 1825 

Meetest for death : the weakest kind of fruit 
Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me. 
You cannot better be employed, Bassanio, 
Than to live still, and write mine epitaph. 

Enter Nerissa, dressed like a lawyer s clerk. 

Duke. Came you from Padua, from Bellario ? 1830 

Ner. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your grace. 

[Presents a letter. 

Bass. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly ? 

Shy. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt, there. 

Gra. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, 
Thou mak'st thy knife keen ; but no metal can, 1835 

No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness 
Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee ? 

Shy. No, none that thou hast wit enough to make. 

Gra. O, be thou damned, inexorable dog 
And for thy life let justice be accused ! 1840 

Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith, 
To hold opinion with Pythagoras 
That souls of animals infuse themselves 
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit 
Governed a wolf, who, hanged for human slaughter, 1845 

1820. Padua. — One of the great Italian universities was at Padua. At 
first this was exclusively a School of Law. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 169 

Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, 
And whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallowed dam 
Infused itself in thee ; for thy desires 
Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous. 

Shy. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond, 1850 

Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud. 
Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall 
To cureless ruin. — I stand here for law. 

Duke. This letter from Bellario doth commend 
A young and learned doctor to our court. 1855 

Where he is ? 

Ner. He attendeth here hard by 

To know your answer, whether you'll admit him. 

Duke. With all my heart. Some three or four of you 
Go give him courteous conduct to this place. 
Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario's letter. i860 

Clerk. [Reads.] Your grace shall understand, that, at the 
receipt of your letter, I am very sick ; but in the instant that 
your messenger came, in lovi?ig visitation was with me a young 
doctor of Rome ; his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him 
with the cause in controversy between the fetv and Antonio, the 1865 
merchant ; we turned o'er ma?iy books together ; he is furnished 
with my opinion, which, bettered with his own learni?ig, the 
greatness whereof I can?wt enough commend, comes zvith him, 
atmyimportu7iity,tofillupyourgraces request in my stead. 
I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impedi?ne?it to let him 1870 
lack a reverend estimation, for I never knew so young a body 
with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, 
whose trial shall better publish his co?nmendation, 

Duke. You hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes : 
And here, I take it, is the doctor come. 1875 

Enter Portia for Balthazar. 

Give me your hand. Came you from old Bellario ? 

For. I did, my lord. 

Duke. You are welcome ; take your place. 

Are you acquainted with the difference 
That holds this present question in the court ? 

For. I am informed thoroughly of the cause. 1880 

Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew ? 

Duke. Antonio and old Shy lock, both stand forth. 



170 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Por. Is your name Shylock ?- 

Shy. Shylock is my name. 

Por. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow ; 
Yet in such rule, that the Venetian law 1885 

Cannot impugn you, as you do proceed. 
[ To Antonio.] You stand within his danger, do you not ? 

Ant. Ay, so he says. 

Por. Do you confess the bond ? 

Ant. I do. 

Por. Then must the Jew be merciful. 

Shy. On what compulsion must I ? tell me that. 1890 

Por. The quality of mercy is not strained, 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath ; it is twice blessed : 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. 

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes 1895 

The throned monarch better than his crown : 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 

But mercy is above this sceptred sway, 1900 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
It is an attribute t9 God himself, 
And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore Jew, 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this, 1905 

That in the course of justice none of us 
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy, 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy. I have spoken thus much 
To mitigate the justice of thy plea, 1910 

1891. Strained. — /. e., mercy is not a matter of compulsion. 

1892. Rain. — It is sent to all, without respect to persons, as impar- 
tially as the rain. Cf. St. Matt. chap. v. ver. 45 : " He maketh His sun 
to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
on the unjust." 

1910. Justice. — Cf. " Meas. for Meas.," act ii. sc. 2. 

" Alas ! Alas ! 
Why all the souls that were were forfeit once 
And He that might the 'vantage best have took, 
Found out the remedy. How would you be, 
If He, which is the top of judgment, should 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 17 1 

Which if thou wilt follow, this strict court of Venice 
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there. 

Shy. My deeds upon my head ! I crave the Law, 
The penalty and forfeit of my bond. 

Por. Is he not able to discharge the money ? 191 5 

Bass. Yes, here I tender it for him in the court ; 
Yea, twice the sum : if that will not suffice, 
I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, 
On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart. 

If this will not suffice, it must appear 1920 

That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you, 
Wrest once the law to your authority : 
To do a great right, do a little wrong, 
And curb this cruel devil of his will. 

Por. It must not be: there is no power. in Venice 1925 

Can alter a decree established ; 
'Twill be recorded for a precedent, 
And many an error, by the same example, 
Will rush into the state : it cannot be. 

Shy. A Daniel come to judgment ! yea, a Daniel ! J93 

O wise young judge, how I do honour thee ! 

Por. I pray you let me look upon the bond. 

Shy. Here 'tis, most reverend doctor, here it is. 

Por. Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee. 

Shy. An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven, 1935 

Shall I lay perjury upon my soul ? 
No, not for Venice. 

Por. Why, this bond is forfeit, 

And lawfully by this the Jew may claim 
A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off 

Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful : 1940 

Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond. 

Shy. When it is paid, according to the tenour. 
It doth appear you are a worthy judge ; 
You know the law, your exposition 
Hath been most sound : I charge you by the Law, 1945 

But judge you as you are? O think on that ; 
And mercy then will breathe within your lips 
Like man new made." 

Same thought incidentally expressed in " Hamlet ": " Use every man 
after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping ? "—Act ii. sc. 2. 



1 7 2 PERIOD OF 1TA LI AN INFL UENCE. 

Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar, 
Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear, 
There is no power in the tongue of man 
To alter me. I stay here on my bond. 

Ant. Most heartily I do beseech the court 1950 

To give the judgment. 

Por. Why then, thus it is : 

You must prepare your bosom for his knife. 

Shy. O noble judge ! O excellent young man ! 

Por. For the intent and purpose of the law 
Hath full relation to the penalty, 1955 

Which here appeareth due upon the bond. 

Shy. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge ! 
How much more elder art thou than thy looks ! 

Por. Therefore, lay bare your bosom. 

Shy. Ay, his breast ; 

So says the bond : — doth it not, noble judge ? — i960 

" Nearest his heart: " those are the very words. 

Por. It is so. Are there balance here to weigh 
The flesh ? 

Shy. I have them ready. 

Por. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, 
To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death. 1965 

Shy. Is it so nominated in the bond ? 

Por. It is not so expressed ; but what of that ? 
'Twere good you do so much for charity. 

Shy. I cannot find it : 'tis not in the bond ? 

Por. You, merchant, have you anything to say ? 1970 

Ant. But little ; I am armed and well prepared. 
Give me your hand, Bassanio : fare you well. 
Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you ; 
For herein Fortune shows herself more kind 

Than is her custom : it is still her use 1975 

To let the wretched man outlive his wealth 
To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow 
An age of poverty ; from which lingering penance 
Of such misery doth she cut me off. 

Commend me to your honourable wife : 1980 

Tell her the process of Antonio's end ; 
Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death ; 
And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 173 

Whether Bassanio had not once a love. 

Repent not you that you shall lose your friend, 1985 

And he repents not that he pays your debt ; 

For, if the Jew do cut but deep enough, 

I'll pay it instantly with all my heart. 

Bass. Antonio, I am married to a wife 
Which is as dear to me as life itself; 1990 

But life itself, my wife, and all the world, 
Are not with me esteemed above thy life ; 
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all 
Here to this devil, to deliver you. 

For. Your wife would give you little thanks for that, 1995 

If she were by to hear you make the offer. 

Gra. I have a wife whom I protest I love : 
I would she were in heaven, so she could 
Entreat some power to change this currish Jew. 

Ner. Tis well you offer it behind her back ; 2000 

The wish would make else an unquiet house. 

Shy. These be the Christian husbands. I have a daughter ; 
Would any of the stock of Barrabas 
Had been her husband, rather than a Christian. 
We trifle time ; I pray thee, pursue sentence. 2005 

For. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is-thine : 
The Court awards it, and the Law doth give it. 

Shy. Most rightful judge ! 

For. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast : 
The Law allows it, and the Court awards it. 2010 

Shy. Most learned judge ! — A sentence ! come, prepare ! 

For. Tarry a little ; there is something else. 
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood ; 
The words expressly are, a pound of flesh : 

Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh ; 2015 

But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed 
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods 
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate 
Unto the state of Venice. 

Gra. O upright judge !— Mark, Jew : — O learned judge ! 2020 

Shy. Is that the law ? 

For. Thyself shalt see the Act ; 

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured, 
Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest, 



174 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Gra. O learned judge ! — Mark, Jew : — a learned judge ! 

Shy. I take this offer then ; pay the bond thrice, 2025 

And let the Christian go. 

Bass. Here is the money. 

For. Soft ! 

The Jew shall have all justice ; — soft ! — no haste : 
He shall have nothing but the penalty. 

Gra. O Jew, an upright judge, a learned judge ! 

Por. Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh. 2030 

Shed thou no blood ; nor cut thou less nor more 
But just a pound of flesh : if thou takest more / 
Or less than a just pound, — be it but so much 
As makes it light or heavy in the substance 

Or the division of the twentieth part 2035 

Of one poor scruple, nay if the scale do turn 
But in the estimation of a hair, 
Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate. 

Gra. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew ! 
Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip. 2040 

Por. Why doth the Jew pause ? take thy forfeiture. 

Shy. Give me my principal, and let me go. 

Bass. I have it ready for thee ; here it is. 

Por. He hath refused it in the open court : 
He shall have merely justice, and his bond. 2045 

Gra. A Daniel, still say I ; a second Daniel"! 
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. 

Shy. Shall I not have barely my principal ? 

Por. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture, 
To be so taken at thy peril, Jew. 2050 

Shy. Why then the devil give him good of it ! 
I'll stay no longer question. 

Por. Tarry, Jew, 

The law hath yet another hold on you. 
It is enacted in the laws of Venice, 

If it be proved against an alien, 2055 

That, by direct or indirect attempts, 
He seek the life of any citizen, 
The party against the which he cloth contrive 
Shall seize one half his goods ; the other half 

Comes to the privy coffer of the State, 2060 

And the offender's life lies in the mercy 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 75 

Of the Duke only, against all other voice. 

In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st ; 

For it appears by manifest proceeding, 

That indirectly and directly too, 2065 

Thou hast contrived against the very life 

Of the defendant, and thou hast incurred 

The danger formerly by me rehearsed. 

Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke. 

Gra. Beg, that thou may'st have leave to hang thyself ; 2070 

And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the State, 
Thou hast not left the value of a cord ; 
Therefore thou must be hanged at the State's charge. 

Duke. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirits, 
I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it. 2075 

For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's : 
The other half comes to the general State, 
Which humbleness may drive into a fine. 

For. Ay, for the State ; not for Antonio. 

Shy. Nay, take my life and all ; pardon not that : 2080 

You take my house, when you do take the prop 
That doth sustain my house ; you take my life, 
When you do take the means whereby I live. 

Por. What mercy can you render him, Antonio ? — 

Gra. A halter gratis ; nothing else, for God's sake. — 2085 

Ant. So please my lord the Duke, and all the Court, 
To quit the fine for one half of his goods, 
I am content so he will let me have 
The other half in use, to render it 

Upon his death unto the gentleman 2090 

That lately stole his daughter : 
Two things provided more, — that, for this favour, 
He presently become a Christian ; 

2084. See Introduction to " Merchant of Venice," p. in. 

2093. Become a Christian. — In Coryat's "Crudities" we find the following : 
" For this I understand is the main impediment to their conversion : all their 
goods are confiscated as soon as they embrace Christianity, and this I heard 
is the reason, because whereas many of them do raise their fortunes by 
usury, insomuch that they do not only sheare, but also fleece many a poore 
Christian's estate by their griping extortions, it is therefore decreed by the 
Pope and other free Princes in whose territories they live, that they shall 
make a restitution of all their ill-gotten goods, and so disclogge their soules 



1 7 6 PERIOD OF IT A L I A A ' IXFL UENCE. 

The other, that he do record a'gift, 

Here in the court, of all he dies possessed 2095 

Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter. 

Duke. He shall do this, or else I do recant 
The pardon, that I late pronounced here. 

Por. Art thou contented, Jew? what dost thou say? 

Sky. I am content. 

Por. Clerk, draw a deed of gift. 2100 

Shy. I pray you give me leave to go from hence. 
I am not well. Send the deed after me, 
And I will sign it. 

Duke. Get thee gone, but d: it. 

Gra. In christening thou shalt have two godfathers, 
Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more, 2105 

Tc aring thee to the gallows, not the font. 'Exit SHYLOCK. 

Duke. Sir, I entreat you have vith me to dinner. 

Por. I humbly do desire your grace of pardon, 
I must away this night toward Padua, 
And i; is meet I presently set forth. 21 10 

Duke. I am sorry that yaur leisure serves you not. 
Antonio, gratify this gentleman, 
Far, in my mind, you are much bound to him. 

{Exeunt Duke and J: is Train. 

Bass. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend 
Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted 21 r 5 

Of grievous penalties ; in lieu whereof, 
Three thousand ducats, due unto tite Jew, 
We freely cope your courteous pains withal. 

Ant. And stand indebted, over and above, 
In love and service to you evermore. 2120 

Por. He is well paid that is well satisfied ; 
And I, delivering you, am satisfied, 

and consciences when they are admitted by Holy Baptisme into the bosom 
of Christ's Church. See::: a then, v.-her. : .eir goods are taken from them at 
their conversion they are left even nak^d and destitute of their means of 
maintenance, there are fewer Teres converted to Christianity in Italy than in 
any other country in Christendom, whereas in Germany, Poland, and other 
places the Jewes that are converted (which doth of ten happen) enjoy their es- 
tates as they did before." 

2105. Ten. — This would make twelve men to hurry him to the gallows — 
what does that me 






THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 177 

And therein do account myself well paid : 

My mind was never yet more mercenary. 

I pray you, know me when we meet again : 2125 

I wish you well, and so I take my leave. 

Bass. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further : 
Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute 
Not as a fee. Grant me two things, I pray you ; 
Not to deny me, and to pardon me. 2130 

For. You press me far, and therefore I will yield. 
Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake ; 
And, for your love, I'll take this ring from you. 
Do not draw back your hand ; I'll take no more ; 
And you in love shall not deny me this. 2135 

Bass. This ring, good sir ? alas, it is a trifle ; 
I will not shame myself to give you this. 

For. I will have nothing else but only this ; 
And now, methinks, I have a mind to it. 

Bass. There's more depends on this than on the value. 2140 

The dearest ring in Venice will I give you, 
And find it out by proclamation : 
Only for this, I pray you, pardon me. 

For. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers. 
You taught me first to beg, and now, methinks, 2145 

You teach me how a beggar should be answered. 

Bass. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife : 
And when she put it on, she made me vow 
That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it. 

For. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts. 2150 

An if your wife be not a mad-woman, 
And know how well I have deserved this ring, 
She would not hold out enemy forever, 
For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you. 

[Exeunt Portia and Nerissa. 

Ant. My lord Bassanio, let him have the ring : 2155 

Let his deservings, and my love withal, 
Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandement. 

Bass. Go, Gratiano ; run and overtake him 
Give him the ring ; and bring him, if thou canst, 
Unto Antonio's house. Away ! make haste. 2160 

\Exit Gratiano. 



i 7 8 PERIOD OF I TALI AX INFL UENCE 

Come, you and I will thither presently, 

An i in the morning early will we both 

Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio. {Exeunt. 

Scene II.— The Same. A Street. 
Enter PORTIA and NERISSA. 

P. 1 ?-. Inquire the Jew's house out. jive him this ceed, 
And it: him sign it : we'll away to-night, 2165 

And be a cy before our husbands home. 
This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo. 
Enter Gratiano. 

Gra. Fair sir. you are well o'erta'en. 
My lord Bassanio. upon more advize. 

Hath sent you here this ring, ana doth entreat 2170 

Year company at dinner. 

Por. That cannot be, 

His ring I do accept most titankfully, 
And so I pray you. tell him . furthermore 
I pray you, show my youth old Shylock's house. 

Gra. That will I do. 

Ner. Sua I would speal: with you. — 2175 

[To Portia." I'll see if I can get my husband's ring, 
Which I did make him swear to keep for ever. 

Por. [ To Nerissa.] Thou may's:. I warrant. We shall have 
old swearing 
That they did give the rings away to men ; 

But we'll outface them and outswear them too. 2180 

[Aloud.] Away! make haste : thou know'st where I will tarry. 

Ner. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house ? 

[Exeunt. 

ACT V. 

Scene I.— Belmont. The Avenue to Portia's House. 
Enter Lorenzo aw' Jessica. 

Lor. The moon shines "tight. In such a night as this, 

When the sweet wind did gently lass the trees. 

21:3. The moon shines bright. — After the tragic strains of the fourth act, 
the key changes, and the play cleats peacefully witl moonlight, music, and 
love ; this is indicated by the opening words. With quiet and contemplation 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 179 

And they did make no noise, in such a night, 2185 

Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls 
And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents, 
Where Cressid lay that night. 

Jes. In such a night 

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew, 

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself, 2190 

And ran dismayed away. 

Lor. In such a night 

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love 
To come again to Carthage. 

Jes. In such a night 

Medea gathered the enchanted herbs 2195 

That did renew old ^Eson. 

Lor. In such a night 

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, 
And with an unthrift love did run from Venice, 
As far as Belmont. 

Jes. In such a night 

Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well, 2200 

Stealing her soul with many vows of faith 
And ne'er a true one. 

Lor. In such a night 

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew, 
Slander her love, and he forgave it her. 

Jes. I would out-night you did no body come ; 2205 

But, hark, I hear the footing of a man. 

Enter Stephano. 

Lor. Who comes so fast in silence of the night ? 

Steph. A friend. 

Lor. A friend ? what friend? your name, I pray you, friend? 

Steph. Stephano is my name ; and I bring word 2210 

My mistress will before the break of day 
Be here at Belmont ; she doth stray about 
By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays 
For happy wedlock hours. 

mingles a touch of pathos. All the love stories referred to end unhappily, 
as though Lorenzo were contrasting- his happiness with the trouble of others. 
Look up the allusions, and find in what plays Shakespeare has treated the 
stories of Cressid and of Thisbe, 



I So PERIOD OE ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Lor. Who comes with her? 

Steph. None but a holy hermit, and her maid. 2215 

I pray you. is my master yet returned ? 

Lor. He is not, nor we have not heard from him. 
But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica, 
And ceremoniously let us prepare 
Some welcome for the mistress of the house. 2220 

Enter Laungelot. 

Laun. Sola, sola ! wo ha, ho ! sola, sola ! 

Lor. Who calls ? 

Laun. Sola ! did you see Master Lorenzo, and Mistress Lor- 
enzo ? sola, sola ! 

Lor. Leave holloing, man ; — here. 2225 

Laun. Sola ! where ? where ? 

Lor. Here. 

Laun. Tell him, there's a post come from my master, with his 
horn full of good news : my master will be here ere morning. 

[Exit. 

Lor. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming. 2230 

And yet no matter ; why should we go in ? 
My friend Stephano. signify, I pray you, 
Within the house, your mistress is at hand; 
And bring your music forth into the air. [Exit STEPHANO. 

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 2235 

Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears : soft stillness and the night 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
Sit, Jessica : look, how the floor of heaven 

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. 2240 

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins : 
Such harmony is in immortal souls: 

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 2245 

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 

Enter Musicians. 

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn : 

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, 

And draw her home with music. [Music. 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 181 

Jes. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. 2250 

Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive : 
For do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, 
Which is the hot condition of their blood ; 22 55 

If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, . 
Or any air of music touch their ears, 
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, 
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze 

By the sweet power of music : therefore the poet 2260 

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods ; 
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage, 
But music for the time doth change his nature. 
The man that hath no music in himself, 

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 2265 

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
And his affections dark as Erebus; 
Let no such man be trusted : Mark the music. 

Enter Portia and Nerissa, at a distance. 

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall. 2270 

How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

2264. The man that hath no music, etc. — "All deep things are Song. It 
seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song; as if all the rest were but 
wrappages and hulls ! The primal element of us; of us, and of all things. 
The Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies: it was the feeling they had of the 
inner structure of Nature; that the soul of all her voices and utterances was 
perfect music. Poetry, therefore, we will call musical Thought. The Poet 
is he who thinks in that manner. . . . See deep enough, and you see 
musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach 
it." — Carlyle's " Heroes and Hero-Worship — The Hero as Poet." Cf. Shy- 
lock's attitude toward music and masques, in his directions to Jessica, act 
ii. lines 772-782. 

2271. Candle. — Morley thus explains the especial significance of this and 
the two speeches following. Lorenzo and Jessica are lifted into sympathy 
with the harmony in the universe and in immortal souls, and earthly music 
is used as a type of this underlying harmony and associated with it. Earthly 
music and that inward harmony, closed in by the vesture of decay, is but 



1 82 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle. 

For. So doth the greater glory dim the less : 
A substitute shines brightly as a king, 2275 

Until a king be by; and then his state 
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook 
Into the main of waters : — Music: hark ! 

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house. 

Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect. 2280 

Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. 

Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. 

Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark 
When neither is attended ; and, I think, 

The nightingale, if she should sing by day, 2285 

When every goose is cackling, would be thought 
No better a musician than the wren. 
How many things by season seasoned are 
To their right praise, and true perfection ! — 

Peace, ho ! — the moon sleeps with Endymion, 2290 

And would not be awaked. 

Lor. That is the voice, 

Or I am much deceived, of Portia. 

Por. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo, 
By the bad voice/ 

Lor. Dear lady, welcome home. 

Por. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare 2295 

Which speed, we hope, the better for our words. 
Are they returned ? 

Lor. Madam, they are not yet ; 

But there is come a messenger before, 
To signify their coming. 

Por. Go in, Nerissa ; 

Give order to my servants, that they take 2300 

No note at all of our being absent hence ; 
Nor you, Lorenzo ; Jessica, nor you. [A tucket sounded. 

Lor. Your husband is at hand ; I hear his trumpet. 
We are no tell-tales, madam ; fear you not. 

Por. This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick ; 2305 

an anticipation, to be lost hereafter as the candle's light in the glory of the 
moon. " Man's endeavor to establish the kingdom of heaven within him 
shines royally, till it has blended with, and is lost in, the supreme glories of 
eternal love." Morley's Introduction to " Merchant of Venice," Cassell's Ed, 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 183 

It looks a little paler : 'tis a day, 
Such as the day is when the sun is hid. 

Enter Bassanio, Antonio, Gratiano, and their Followers. 

Bass. We should hold day with the Antipodes 
If you would walk in absence of the sun. 

For. Let me give light, but let me not be light ; 2310 

For a light wife doth make a heavy husband, 
And never be Bassanio so for me : 
But God sort all ! You are welcome home, my lord. 

Bass. I thank you, madam. Give welcome to my friend : 
This is the man, this is Antonio, 2315 

To whom I am so infinitely bound. 

For. You should in all sense be much bound to him, 
For, as I hear, he was much bound for you. 

Ant. No more than I am well acquitted of. 

For. Sir, you are very welcome to our house : 2320 

It must appear in other ways than words, 
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy. 

Gra. [ To Nerissa.] By yonder moon, I swear, you do me 
wrong ; 
In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk : 

For. A quarrel, ho, already ! what's the matter ? 2325 

Gra. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring 
That she did give me, whose posy was 
For all the world like cutler's poetry 
Upon a knife, Love me, and leave me not. 

Ner. What talk you of the posy or the value ? 2330 

You swore to me when I did give it you 
That you would wear it till your hour of death, 
And that it should lie with you in your grave : 
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths, 
You should have been respective and have kept it. 2335 

Gave it a judge's clerk ! no, God's my judge, 
The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it. 

Gra. He will, an if he live to be a man. 

Ner. Ay, if a woman live to be a man. 

Gra. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth, 2340 

A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy, 
No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk ; 



1 84 PERIOD OF IT A II A N I NFL UENCE. 

A prating boy, that begged it as a fee : 
I could not for my heart deny it him. 

For. You were to blame, I must be plain with you, 2345 

To part so slightly with your wife's first gift : 
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger, 
And so riveted with faith unto your flesh. 
I gave my love a ring, and made him swear 

Never to part with it ; and here he stands : 2350 

I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it 
Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth 
That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano, 
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief : 
An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it. 235 5 

Bass. [Aside.'] Why, I were best to cut my left hand off, 
And swear I lost the ring defending it. 

Gra. My lord Bassanio gave his ring away 
Unto the judge that begged it, and, indeed, 

Deserved it too ; and then the boy, his clerk, 2360 

That took some pains in writing, he begged mine ; 
And neither man nor master would take aught 
But the two rings. 

Por. What ring gave you, my lord ? 

Not that, I hope, which you received of me. 

Bass. If I could add a lie unto a fault, 2365 

I would deny it ; but you see, my finger 
Hath not the ring upon it : it is gone. 

Por. Even so void is your false heart of truth. 
By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed 
Until I see the ring. 

Ner. Nor I in yours, 2370 

Till I again see mine. 

Bass. Sweet Portia, 

If you did know to whom I gave the ring, 
If you did know for whom I gave the ring, 
And would conceive for what I gave the ring, 

And how unwillingly I left the ring, 2375 

When naught would be accepted but the ring, 
You would abate the strength of your displeasure. 

Por. If you had known the virtue of the ring, 
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring, 
Or your own honour to contain the ring, 2380 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 1 85 

You would not then have parted with the ring. 

What man is there so much unreasonable, 

If you had pleased to have defended it 

With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty 

To urge the thing held as a ceremony ? 2385 

Nerissa teaches me what to believe : 

I'll die for't but some woman had the ring. 

Bass. No, by mine honour, madam, by my soul, 
No woman had it ; but a civil doctor, 

Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me, 2390 

And begged the ring, the which I did deny him, 
And suffered him to go displeased away, 
Even he that had held up the very life 
Of my dear friend. What should. I say, sweet lady? 
I was enforced to send it after him ; 2395 

I was beset with shame and courtesy ; 
My honour would not let ingratitude 
So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady, 
For, by these blessed candles of the night, 

Had you been there, I think, you would have begged 2400 

The ring of me to give the worthy doctor. 

Por. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house. 
Since he hath got the jewel that I loved, 
And that which you did swear to keep for me, 

I will become as liberal as you : 2405 

I'll not deny him any thing I have. 

Ant. I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels. 

Por. Sir, grieve not you ; you are welcome notwithstanding. 

Bass. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong; 
And in the hearing of these many friends 2410 

I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes, 
Wherein I see myself 

Por. Mark you but that ! 

In both my eyes he doubly sees himself ; 
In each eye, one : — swear by your double self, 
And there's an oath of credit. 

Bass. Nay, but hear me. 2415 

Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear, 
I never more will break an oath with thee. 

Ant. I once did lend my body for his wealth, 
Which, but for him that had your husband's ring, 



1 86 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Had quite miscarried : I dare'be bound again, 2420 

My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord 
Will nevermore break faith advisedly. 

For. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this, 
And bid him keep it better than the other. 

Ant. Here, Lord Bassanio ; swear to keep this ring. 2425 

Bass. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor. 

Por. You are all amazed : 
Here is a letter, read it at your leisure ; 
It comes from Padua, from Bellario : 

There you shall find, that Portia was the doctor, 2430 

Nerissa there, her clerk. Lorenzo here 
Shall witness, I set forth as soon as you, 
And even but now returned ; I have not yet 
Entered my house. Antonio, you are welcome ; 
And I have better news in store for you, 2435 

Than you expect : unseal this letter soon ; 
There you shall find, three of your argosies 
Are richly come to harbour suddenly. 
You shall not know by what strange accident 
I chanced on this letter. 2440 

A?it. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living ; 
For here I read for certain that my ships 
Are safely come to road. 

Por. How now, Lorenzo ? 

My clerk hath some good comforts too for you. 

Ner. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee. 2445 

There do I give to you and Jessica, 
From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift, 
After his death, of all he dies possessed of. 

Lor. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way 
Of starved people. 

Por. It is almost morning, 2450 

And yet I am sure you are not satisfied 
Of these events at full. Let us go in ; 
And charge us there upon inter 'gatories, 
And we will answer all things faithfully. {Exeunt. 



FRANCIS BACON. 1 87 

FRANCIS BACON. 

The greatest names in Elizabethan literature are those 
of the dramatists and the poets, yet the intellectual 
advance of the time showed itself, also, in a rapid de- 
velopment of prose. English prose had Elizabethan 
made but little progress between the Prose - 
time of Wyclif and the middle of the sixteenth 
century. Such works as Malory's Morte cT Arthur 
(1485), Moore's History of Richard III. (written 
15 13), and Tyndale's Translation of the Bible (1525), 
show prose struggling towards a more honorable 
place; but it is not until the early years of the reign of 
Elizabeth, when life and thought were expanding on 
every side, that the art of English prose-writing may be 
said to fairly begin. The effect of the Renaissance may 
be seen in the learned prose of Ascham (15 15-1568), and 
in the euphuistic intricacies of John Lyly (1553-1606). 
Literary criticism springs into life in such works as Sid- 
ney's Defense of Poesy (1 580-1 581), or Puttenham's 
Art of English Poesy (1589). Prose fiction is repre- 
sented by Sidney's elaborate romance, The Arcadia, 
(i 590), and by countless shorter stories from the rapid pens 
of Peele, Greene, and other struggling dramatists. Besides 
all this, we have, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, 
an abundant prose literature of history and travel, and 
innumerable pamphlets on the questions of the day. 
In theology, Richard Hooker published The Lazvs of 
Ecclesiastical Polity (first four books, 1594); a great 
work, which has been called " the first monument of 
splendid literary prose that we possess."* This growth 
of English prose, in many directions, can only be hinted 
at, nor can we stop to consider Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, or 
Sir Thomas Brown, writers who occupy a high place in 

* " English Literature Primer," S. Brooke, p. 79. 



PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE 

the literature of the early seventeenth century by their 
quaintness, or majesty : :' style. 1 ut of this wide range 
rill select one writer, Francis Bacon, for a somewhat 
more extended study. 

Francis Bacon was born in London, January :: '/ 
His fathei " wa . ; 5 N cholas Bac : .-.. Lord Keeper of the 
Great Seal, and one of the most trusted of the early 
statesmen of Elizabeth vet more famous 

Bacon s Life 

statesman, Lord Burleigh was his uncle by 
marriage. From his earliest years Bacon was thus con- 
nected with the court and with public life. When he 

was eighteen, his prospect- « ere greatly changed by 
the sudden death of his Father. Bacon, who was the 
younger son. was thus left insi — :. tly provided for, and 
was compelled t: make bis ; in the world. He 

accordingly entered upon the study :>f the law, and 
although Lord Burleigh showed :tc . '.-: :sit:: .: t : Etssis: 
him, his advance was exceedingly raj .: He was made a 
barrister in 1582, Solicitor-General in :;::. Attorney- 
General in 1 61 3. and Lord Chancellor in 1 61 7. Frc this 
iant pub.:: success <?e get no idea of Bacon's inner life 
an d deepest a s p i r :. : . : a ; H e leclared, i a I etter to Lord 
Burleigh, written at the >utset oi : :areei I confess 
that I have as va 5 t : : a t e m Native ends 5 I have moderate 
civil ends ; for I b :■ r : ke ■■•■ledge to be my prov- 

ince.'' He early resolved that he would strive to benefit 
the race fa y t b e e scoveryof t r th a .though he seems 

at times to have been diverted b; — : ess: ties :: 

worldly ambitic is .: was ?.lwiys tree a: heart t: his 
loft)?" purpose. From his lity tc eoncile contend- 

ing interests, the love : :' place and power, with the un- 
selfish devot:::: t: be : --\ e:. _: ; _ ; tbt tragedy ;: 
Bacon's life, fn ::"::. Bacon s wc ./by ambitions were 
overthrown : _ st roke. Hewas accused of having taken 
bribes in his office rf Lore 7'. He ; 



FRA NCIS BA CON. 1 8 9 

confessed the charge, and was henceforth a ruined man 
in reputation and in fortune. Bacon spent the remainder 
of his life in the composition of some of the great philo- 
sophical and scientific works on which his fame chiefly 
rests. With Bacon, the philosopher and scientist, how- 
ever, the student of English literature is not directly 
concerned. The story of his closing years is very pitiable. 
" The Lord Chancellor," said his former patron, the 
young favorite, Buckingham, "the Lord Chancellor is so 
sick that he cannot live long." He still showed a brave 
front to the world, and moved about with a courtly 
retinue, like the shadow of his former self, so that Prince 
Charles said of him : " This man scorns to go out in a 
snuff;" but, for all this, the wound was deep, and bled 
inwardly. He caught cold, from exposure, while engaged 
in a scientific experiment, and died a few days later, 
April 9, 1626. 

Bacon is generally considered the greatest man of the 
Elizabethan age, with the single and inevitable excep- 
tion of Shakespeare. Dean Church calls him " The bright- 
est, richest, largest mind but one, in the age which 
had seen Shakespeare and his fellows." Yet, speaking 
strictly, Bacon holds a place in English literature almost 
by accident, and in spite of himself. He deliberately 
chose to be a Latin rather than an English writer, hav- 
ing no confidence in the stability of his own language, 
and believing that it would " at one time or another 
play the bank-rowte (bankrupt) with books." He even 
went so far as to have his Advancement of Learning 
translated from English into Latin, so convinced was he 
of the superiority of the latter tongue. This book in 
its original form, The Essays, The History of Henry VII., 
and a fragment, The New Atlantis, are substantially 
all that English prose can claim out of the great mass 
of Bacon's writings. 



190 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Yet, while Bacon thought little of his work as an 
English writer, and threw the weight of his immense 
energy in other directions, it is his English works that 
have best held their own. In Raleigh's prose we en- 
counter more impassioned and noble eloquence, as in 
those rare places in the History of the World, where 
he seems to suddenly leave the ground and soar in the 
celestial spaces ; but Bacon's style has a more even excel- 
lence. Incidental and slight as Bacon's connection was 
with the literature of his own language, a high critical 
authority has recently pronounced him " one of the 
greatest writers of English prose before the accession of 
Charles I." * 

Incredible as it would have seemed to Bacon, 
it is by The Essays that he is best known to the 
general reader. By an "essay," Bacon meant the first 
trial, or weighing, of a subject, as distin- 
guished from a finished treatise. f His 
essays are pithy jottings on great subjects, informally set 
down, with no attempt to carry the thought to its full 
or natural conclusion. They read like the note-book of 
a profound thinker, a shrewd observer of life, a politic 
and active man of affairs. They are brief, suggestive, 
without an ornament, but closely packed with thought. 
They give us the concentrated results of Bacon's exper- 
ience, and are often comparable to the proverbial say- 
ings in which wise men have delighted since the days 
of Solomon. Often they go to the heart of the matter 
with one quick thrust, as in the famous sentence : " Pros- 
perity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is 
the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater ben- 
ediction and the clearer revelation of God's favour." % 

* Saintsbury's " Elizabethan Literature," p. 209. 

f Essay — assay — a test, or examination of metals; O. F,, assai ; Latin, 
(xagium. SeeSkeat's " Etymological Dictionary." 
% Essay on Adversity. 



SELECTION FROM BA CON. 1 9 1 

Bacon's own account of the object of the Essays is, that 
he " endeavored to make them not vulgar, but of a nature 
whereof much should be found in experience and little in 
books ; so that they should be neither repetitions nor 
fancies ; " and he desires that they should " come home 
to men's business and bosoms." 

Three editions of the Essays were published in Bacon's 
life-time; the first in 1597, the second in 1612, and the 
third in 1625. The first edition contained only ten 
essays, but by the third edition the number had been in- 
creased to fifty-eight. 

We are apt to undervalue these essays on the first 
reading, and it is only through long familiarity that 
their wisdom and depth really reveal themselves. The 
essay here given is one of those which exhibit the high 
purposes of Bacon in strange and melancholy contrast 
to his actual performance. Yet we should not conclude 
that he was deliberately insincere, for his whole life was 
one tragic contradiction. In thinking of his shortcom- 
ings we should remember, also, the nobility of his ideals. 
" If ever a man," says Dean Church, " had a great ob- 
ject in life and pursued it through good and evil report, 
through ardent hope, and keen disappointment to the 
end, with unwearied patience and unshaken faith, it was 
Bacon, when he sought for the improvement of human 
knowledge, for the glory of God, and the relief of man's 
estate." * 

SELECTION FROM BACON'S ESSAYS. 

OF GREAT PLACE. 

Men in great place are thrice servants — servants of the sovereign 
or state, servants of fame, and servants of business ; so as they have 
no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their 
times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty, or to 
seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self. The 

* Church's " Life of Bacon." 



1 9 2 PERIOD OF I TALI A N IX FL UENCE. 

rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater 
pains : and it is sometimes base and by indignities men come to dig- 
nities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, 
or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing : " Cum non sis qui 
fueris non esse cur velis vivere." Nay, men cannot retire when they 
would, neither will they when.it were reason, but are impatient of 
privateness, even in age and sickness, which require the shadow; like 
old townsmen, that will be still sitting at their street door though 
thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persons had need to 
borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy, for if they 
judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it ; but if they think with 
themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would 
fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, per- 
haps, they find the contrary within ; for they are the first that find 
their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. 
Certainly, men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and 
while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend 
their health, either of body or mind; " Illi mors gravis incubat, qui 
notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi." In place there is licence 
to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse : for in evil, the best 
condition is not to v. ill, the second not to can. But power to do good 
is the true and lawful end of aspiring ; for good thoughts, though 
God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, 
except they be put in act, and that cannot be without power and 
place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good 
works is the end of man's motion, and conscience of the same in the 
accomplishment of man's rest ; for if a man can be partaker of God's 
theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest: " Et conversus 
Deus, ut aspiceret opera, quae fecerunt manus suae, vidit quod omnia 
essent bona nimis," and then the Sabbath. In the discharge of thy 
place set before thee the best examples, for imitation is a globe of pre- 
cepts; and after a time set before thee thine own example, and ex- 
amine thyself strictly whether thou didst not best at 'first. Neglect 
not also the examples of those that have carried themselves ill in the_ 
same place ; not to set off thyself by taxing their memory, but to di- 
rect thyself what to avoid. Reform, therefore, without bravery or 
scandal of former times and persons ; but yet set it down to thyself, 
as well to create good precedents as to follow them. Reduce things 
to the first institution, and observe wherein and how they have de- 
generated, but yet ask counsel of both times — of the ancient time what 
is best, and of the later time what is fittest. Seek to make thy 



SELECTION FROM BA CON. 193 

course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect: 
but be not too positive and peremptory, and express thyself well 
when thou digressest from thy rules. Preserve the right of thy place, 
but stir not questions of jurisdiction ; and rather assume thy right in 
silence, and de facto, than voice it with claims and challenges. Pre- 
serve likewise the rights of inferior places, and think it more honour to 
direct in chief than to be busy in all. Embrace and invite helps and 
advices touching the execution of thy place ; and do not drive away 
such as bring thee information, as meddlers, but accept of them in 
good part. 

The vices of authority are chiefly four : delays, corruption, rough- 
ness, and facility. For delays, give easy access ; keep times ap- 
pointed : go through with that which is in hand, and interlace not 
business but of necessity. For corruption, do not only bind thine 
own hands or thy servants' hands from taking, but bind the hands of 
suitors also from offering ; for integrity used doth the one, but 
integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth 
the other; and avoid not only the fault but the suspicion. Whoso- 
ever is found variable, and changeth manifestly without manifest 
cause, giveth suspicion of corruption ; therefore, always, when thou 
changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, to- 
gether with the reasons that move thee to change, and do not think 
to steal it. A servant or a favourite, if he be inward, and no other ap- 
parent cause of esteem, is commonly thought but a by-way to close 
corruption. For roughness, it is a needless cause of discontent : 
severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even reproofs 
from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility, 
it is worse than bribery, for bribes come but now and then ; but if 
importunity or idle respects lead a man, he shall never be without ; as 
Solomon saith, " To respect persons it is not good, for such a man 
will transgress for a piece of bread." 

It is most true what was anciently spoken — " A place showeth the 
man ; and it showeth some to the better, and some to the worse." 
" Omnium consensu, capax imperii, nisi imperasset," saith Tacitus of 
Galba ; but of Vespasian he saith, " Solus imperantium, Vespasianus 
mutatus in melius " — though the one was meant of sufficiency, the 
other of manners and affection. It is an assured sign of a worthy 
and generous spirit, whom honour amends — for honour is, or should be, 
the place of virtue — and as in nature things move violently to their 
place, and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in 
authority settled and calm. All rising to great place is by a winding 



194 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

stair ; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self while he 
is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed. Use the 
memory of thy predecessor fairly and tenderly ; for if thou dost not, 
it is a debt will surely be paid when thou art gone. If thou have 
colleagues, respect them ; and rather call them when they look not 
for it, than exclude them when they have reason to look to be called. 
Be not too sensible or too remembering of thy place in conversation 
and private answers to suitors ; but let it rather be said, " When he 
sits in place, he is another man." 



ELIZABETHAN SONGS. 

Songs had been popular in England from an indef- 
initely early period. The genuine poetry of the people — 
the ballads — was sung in early times to the accompani- 
ment of the dance. But the song was greatly developed 
in the Elizabethan times, and was given a more per- 
manent and honorable place in literature. The plays of 
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and 
other Elizabethan dramatists, contain some of the 
loveliest of English songs, and, apart from this, many 
poetical miscellanies, or popular collections of songs and 
sonnets, were published in the later sixteenth and early 
seventeenth centuries. The following selections will 
give some hint of the freshness and musical beauty of 
the Elizabethan lyrics ; but the student will find it worth 
his while to become more fully acquainted with them 
through such books as Palgrave's Golden Treasury, or 
some of the more recent collections from the Elizabethan 
song books. 

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. 

Come live with me, and be my love ; 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That hills and valleys, dales and fields, 
Woods or steepy mountain yields. 



ELIZABETHAN SONGS. 195 

And we will sit upon the rocks, 
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks 
By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

And I will make thee beds of roses, 
And a thousand fragrant posies ; 
A cap of flowers and a kirtle 
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle ; 

A gown made of the finest wool 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull ; 
Fair-lined slippers for the cold, 
With buckles of the purest gold ; 

A belt of straw and ivy-buds, 
With coral clasps and amber studs : 
An if these pleasures may thee move, 
Come live with me and be my love. 

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning : 
If these delights thy mind may move, 

Then live with me and be my love. «p 

— Marlowe. 

GOOD-MORROW. 

Pack clouds away, and welcome day, 

With night we banish sorrow ; 
Sweet air, blow soft ; mount, larks, aloft, 

To give my love good-morrow. 
Wings from the wind to please her mind, 

Notes from the lark I'll borrow; 
Bird, prune thy wing ; nightingale, sing, 

To give my love good-morrow. 

Wake from thy nest, robin-redbreast ; 

Sing, birds in every furrow ; 
And from each hill let music shrill 

Give my fair love good-morrow, 



196 PERIOD OF 1 TA LI AN I NFL UENCE. 

Blackbird and thrush in every bush, 
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow ; 

You pretty elves, among yourselves, 
Sing my fair love good-morrow. 

— Thomas Heywood. 



(About 1640.) 



THE NOBLE NATURE. 



It is not growing like a tree 
In bulk, doth make man better be ; 
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 
To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere : 
A lily of a day 
Is fairer far in May, 
Although it fall and die that night, — 
It was the plant and flower of Light. 
In small proportions we just beauties see ; 
And in short measures life may perfect be. 

— Ben J o?i son. 

SONG. 

Who doth ambition shun, 
And loves to live i' the sun, 
Seeking the food he eats, 
And pleased with what he gets, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither; 

Here shall he see 

No enemy, 
But winter and rough weather. 

If it do come to pass 
That any man turn ass 
Leaving his wealth and ease 
A stubborn will to please, 
Ducdame, ducdame,.ducdame ; 
Here shall he see, 
Gross fools as he 
An if he will come to Ami. 
'—From "As You Like It," — Shakespeare, 



ELIZABETHAN SONGS. 197 

SONNET. 

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 
(Press'd by) these rebel powers that thee array, 
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, 
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay ? 
Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ? 
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, 
Eat up thy charge ? Is this thy body's end ? 
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, 
And let that pine to aggravate thy store ; 
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; 
Within be fed, without, be rich no more : 

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, 
And death once dead, there's no more dying then. 

— Shakespeare. 



198 



PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 



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THE RISE OF THE DRAMA. 



201 



Table V. 



SOVEREIGNS. 



Henry V., 1413-1422. 

Henry VI., 1422, died 

1471. 
Wars of the Roses, 1455. 
Edward IV., died 1483. 
Edward V., died 14S4. 
Richard III., died 1485. 

Henry VII., 1485-1509. 



Henry VIII., 1509-1547, 



RISE OF THE DRAMA — IIIO-1566. 



The first known dramatic production in England, 
the French Miracle play, " St. Katherine," 
acted at Dunstable about 11 10. 

Institution of the Festival of Corpus Christi(i264) 
gave an impulse to performance of plays. 

Street plays or pageants first performed about 
1268. 

Whitsuntide plays at Chester about 1268; prob- 
ably in French at this date. 

East Midland play, " Abraham and Isaac," middle 
of fourteenth century. 

York cycle of plays about 1340-1350 ; earliest 
known MS., 1430. 

Townley cycle of about thirty plays belonging to 
Widkirk Abbey. 

Coventry plays, 1485-1509. 

Chester Whitsun-plays, "Fall of Lucifer"; 
"Noah's Flood," etc.; composed probably 
early part of 14th century ; earliest MS., 1581. 

Morality Plays : one setting forth the goodness of 
the Lord's Frayer, performed 1480, " Impa- 
tient Poverty," etc. 

Interludes. 

John Heywood, (?)-d. 1 565. 

" The Four P's," about 1530. 

Earliest extant Regular Comedy. 

Nicholas Udal, 1506-1557. 

"Ralph Roister Doister" (acted 1 551), (pub- 
lished 1566.) 

"Gammer Gurton's Needle," by Bishop Still, 
about 1566. 

Thomas Sackville, 1536-1608. 

" Ferrex and Porrex," or the Tragedy of Gorbo- 
duc, played 1561, printed in 1565. 



202 



PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 



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204 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 



NOTES AND REFERENCES. 

i. History. — (a) Renaissance. — Symond's article under that 
title, " Ency. Brit.," 9th ed.; Burkhardt's " Renaissance." An 
article on Pico della Mirandola (whose life was written by Sir 
T. More) will be found in Pater's " Renaissance." (b) England. 
— Thornbury's "Shakespeare's England"; Goadby's " Shake- 
speare's England "; Drake's " Shakespeare and His Times." 
The class may be advised to read Scott's " Kenilworth," Kings- 
ley's " Westward Ho," also " With Essex in Ireland," by Hon. 
Emily Lawless. Froude's •" History of England" covers this 
period. 

2. Spenser. — Church's Life of, in English Men of Letters 
Series; Lowell's essay on, in "Among my Books"; "One 
Aspect of Spenser's Faery Queen," Andover Review, Octo- 
ber, 1889. " Spenser," Grosart's ed. 

3. Elizabethan Drama, etc. — For history of drama, intro- 
duction to Hudson's " Shakspere's Life, Art, and Characters"; 
Pollard's " English Miracle Plays " and Keltie's " British 
Dramatists " give specimen extracts. Symond's " Shake- 
speare's Predecessors in the English Drama"; Thayer's 
" Six best English Plays"; will be found useful for study 
of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Shakespeare. — Dowden's 
"Shakespeare Primer"; Lowell's essay on, in "My Study 
Windows "; Hunter's "Illustrations of the Life and Studies of 
Shakespeare "; Dowden's " Shakespeare, His Mind and Art "; 
Elze's " Life of Shakespeare "; Knight's " Life of Shakespeare "; 
White's "Shakespeare's Scholar"; Craik's "English of Shake- 
speare "; Abbott's " Shakespearian Grammar." Bayne's article 
on, in "Ency. Brit.," 9th Ed. is especially valuable for study of 
early environment. 

4. Bacon. — Church's Life of, in English Men of Letters 
Series ; Macaulay's Essay on. 

5. Elizabethan Songs. — Palgrave's " Golden Treasury "; 
A. H. Bullen's "England's Helicon"; " Lyrics from the Dram- 
atists of the Elizabethan Age"; Bell's "Songs from the 
Dramatists." 



THE ENGLAND OF MILTON. 205 

Chapter n. 

The Puritan in Literature. 

THE ENGLAND OF MILTON. 

ALTHOUGH Shakespeare and Milton are familiarly 
linked together in our ordinary speech as the two greatest 
poets of England, in the whole spirit and Shakespeare 

... . , , 1 11 and Milton Ex- 

Iiatlire of their work they have hardly any- press the spirit 

_ . / , of Different 

thing in common. It is not merely that Times, 
they are, for the most part, distinguished in separate 
provinces of poetry; that Shakespeare is above all the 
dramatic, and Milton the epic poet of the literature : 
the difference lies much deeper, and declares itself un- 
mistakably at almost every point. Now, this is not en- 
tirely due to an inborn, personal difference in the genius 
of these two representative poets ; it is due also to the 
difference in the spirit of the times they represent. For 
in a sense even Shakespeare was " of an age," as well as 
" for all time."* So far as we can guess from his work, 
he seems to have shared the orthodox politics of the 
Tudor times, distrusting the actions of the populace, 
and stanch in his support of the power of the king. In 
the true spirit of the Renaissance, Shakespeare's work is 
taken up chiefly with humanity in this world, rather 
than with its relations to any other; his dramas are alive 
with the crowding interests and activities which came 
with the Revival of Learning. But the England in 
which Milton lived and worked was stirred by far differ- 
ent emotions ; its finest spirits were inspired by far differ- 
ent ideals. Milton interprets and expresses the England 
of Puritanism, as Shakespeare does the England of Eliza- 
beth, and to understand the difference in the spirit of 

* " He was not of an age, but for all time." From Ben Jonson's poem to 
the memory of Shakespeare. 



: : : PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

their poetry, e must turn to history and grasp the broad 

distinction between the times they respectively represent. 
At first sight the change from the England of Shake- 
speare to that of Milton seems on a era jot one. In point of 

E;i"i>etha= f^' ~ tV-.T -: -" IV - : ~ : V • - -V - - V \\ V V. " -' " '- 

e^toes that Romanist and Protestant fiugh: the Armada 

met the king in battle I would shcot him as soon as my 
other man/' Yet in reality this change :: the nation's 
mood was not hasty or unaccountable, but the n at oral 
result of a long and steady development. 

..he so the o: the Renaissance as the re-birth of the re- 
ligious as veil as of the intellectual life of Europe, and 
we sou that while in Italy the new life of the mind took 

form in what we toil the Revival :f Learning, in Germany 
the rev; life •:■:" the spirit had its outcome in that r mi- 
gious awakening we tail the Reformation. If in Italy the 



and the Reformat!::: entered England almost side by 
side. If the enthusiasm for the New Learning, the color. 
the luxury, and the " enchantments :: the Circes." had 
entered England from Italy, something oiso of the 
awakening :f conscience and the prttest agaiost Roman- 
ism hod come fr:n: Germany, to una a deep response in 
the kindred spirit of Teutonic England. 

In our study cf the Elizabethan period we have fol- 
lowed the host of these two influences. Let us lock a 
moment at the second. Almost from the nrst. the tone 
of the New Learning in England had been colore: 



THE ENGLAND OF MILTON. 207 

the inherently religious temper of the English character. 
The knowledge of Greek which John Colet gained in 
semi-pagan Italy he applied to the study The Reforma . 
of the New Testament. Educational re- tion in En & land - 
former as he was, he had the image of the child Christ 
placed over the head master's desk in St. Paul's Grammar 
School, with the inscription, " Hear ye Him." * Just as 
the introduction of the study of Greek at Oxford changed 
the horizon of the English mind, so the introduction of 
Tyndale's translation of the Bible was an incalculable 
spiritual force. " If God spare my life," Tyndale had 
said to a learned opponent, "ere many years I will cause 
that the boy that driveth the plough shall know more of 
the Scriptures than thou dost." And year after year the 
inestimable influence of an ever-widening knowledge of 
the Bible was at work in thousands of English households. 
Beginning among the upper stratum of society, the 
New Learning had worked downward until it touched 
the people. But the changes wrought by The En u h 
direct contact with the English Bible, if Bible - 
slower, were even more vital and more extended. The 
Bible became the literature of the people, telling the 
poorest and plainest of the essential things of life in 
words which all could understand. If we find a typical 
picture in the crowd of London shopkeepers and pren- 
tices crowding the pit of the " Fortune " or the " Globe," 
we find one no less typical in the eager throngs gathered 
about the reader of the Bible in the nave of St. Paul's. 
" The disclosure of the stores of Greek Literature had 
wrought the revolution of the Renaissance. The dis- 
closure of the older mass of Hebrew Literature wrought 
the revolution of the Reformation. "f 

* For account of Colet, read Green's " History of the English People," 
vol. ii p. 79, etc. 

\ Green's " History of the English People," vol. iii. p. 11. The whole 
passage, from p. 9 to p. 13, may be read in class. 



208 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. ] 

With this new idea of' religious liberty, the idea of 
political liberty became closely associated. Stimulated 
Religious and anc ^ emancipated by greater intellectual and 
fy 0l cioseiy L c b o e nr religious freedom of inquiry, men began to 
nected ' scrutinize and discuss the whole theory of 

government. They grew restless under the arbitrary 
rule of the early Stuarts, as their minds rose to the con- 
ception of their supreme obligation to a higher law ; to a 
Power above the will of the king in the State, above 
the will of man in the kingdom of God. In the early 
part of the seventeenth century many things combined to 
call out and develop these new feelings. The middle 
classes had advanced greatly during Elizabeth's reign, in 
prosperity, influence, and intelligence ; the danger from 
Spain was at an end, and men were free to give them- 
selves up to matters at home. But the natural growth 
of the nation towards a greater political and religious 
freedom was met by petulant opposition. Elizabeth had 
been wise enough to know when and how to yield to the 
will of her Parliament and people, but it was character- 
istic of the Stuarts to take a wrong; position, 

Arbitrary . . .,, 

Rule of the and hold to it with an obstinate and reckless 

Early Stuarts. 

tenacity. The unkingly James (1603-1625) 
flaunted what he considered the " Divine Right "of his 
kingship in the face of an exasperated England. In the 
early years of the following reign (Charles I., 1 625-1 649), 
the growing Puritan sentiment was outraged by. brutal 
persecution, the rising spirit of liberty insulted by fla- 
grant violations of the long-established and sacred politi- 
cal rights of Englishmen. Thus the England that rose up 
in protest against the severities of Archbishop Laud and 
the tyranny and duplicity of Charles, was on fire with 
other interests, and other aspirations than that of Eliza- 
beth ; its energies were centered upon two great issues — 
Politics and. Religion. In the one, it was determined to 



LATER ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. 209 

" vindicate its ancient liberties " ; in the other, it 
M reasoned of righteousness and judgment to come." 
Among its great leaders in politics were Eliot, Hampden, 
Pym, and Cromwell ; in literature it spoke in the strong, 
simple, biblical prose of John Bunyan, a poor tinker; its 
poet was John Milton. 

LATER ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. 

But while the new ways of looking at the deepest 
questions of life, which for years had been agitating the 
Puritan element in England, were thus coming to the 
surface in history and in literature, during the early part 
of the seventeenth century many continued to write in 
the general manner and spirit of the Elizabethans. This 
later Elizabethan literature lies outside our present plan 
of study, but it cannot be passed over without a few 
words. 

The group of dramatists immediately preceding 
Shakespeare (see p. 91) had been followed by a number 
of men of genius who had the advantage of Later Eliza _ 
writing at a time when the theatre was a bethan Drama- 
more recognized institution, and the general form of the 
drama had been fixed by successful experiment. Ben 
Jonson, whose first play, Every Man in his Humor, 
was brought out about 1596-98, is usually considered as 
the greatest of Shakespeare's fellow-playwrights ; he 
doggedly fought his way to the front in the face of many 
obstacles, wrote many plays and masks, and after Shake- 
speare's death became the most prominent man of letters 
in England. Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, 
Chapman, Dekker, and Marston, are a few of the most 
famous of these dramatists, and we see the influence of 
Italy in such plays as Webster's Duchess of Malfi, and 
Vittoria Corombona, or^in the intense and passionate 
tragedies of Cyril Tourneur. Nevertheless, the decline 



2 1 o PERIOD OF IT A LI A N INFL UENCE. 

of the Elizabethan drama had begun before Shakespeare's 
death. Unlike Shakespeare, Ben Jonson was not con- 
; tent to " hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to 

and Decline of nature," * and show the world of men and 

Drama. . . 

women as it actually existed: he thought 
that the poet's business was to point a moral and to reform 
society. He ridiculed the abuses and fashionable follies 
of the time by making the persons of his dramas rep- 
resent the peculiar hobbies or " humors " of men, but in 
doing this his drama lost in faithfulness to life through a 
method which inclined him to make the mere caricature of 
what we call a " fad " take the place of a character. The 
method of Jonson, great as he was, was thus a distinct 
falling off from that of Shakespeare. 

Apart from this, the decline of the drama is closely 
associated with the increase of the Puritans, among whom 

were its bitterest opponents. In the early 

Puritan Hos- , . ... , 

tiiity to the seventeenth century this hostility to the 

Stage. . J J 

stage increased; unsuccessful attempts were 
made (1619, 163 1, 1633) to suppress Blackfriars Theatre, 
and the representation of plays on Sunday was prohibited. 
Many of the more respectable people stayed away from 
the theatres altogether, while those who came demanded 
plays of a more and more depraved character. Finally, 
about the beginning of the Civil War (1642), the theatres 
were closed altogether, and the drama almost ceased 
until the Restoration (1660). 

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LYRISTS. 

Most of the poetry of the early seventeenth century 
follows the general lines laid down by the Elizabethans, 
but with an obvious loss of creative power, and with less 
freshness, vigor, and depth. The first enthusiasm 
awakened by the coming of the new learning was largely 

* " Hamlet," act iii. sc. 2. 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LYRISTS. 21 1 

spent, and men's energies were beginning to go out in 
new directions. Deprived of the strong inner impulse 
which sustained the earlier writers, poetry became more 
light, trifling, and affected. Dr. John Donne (i 573-1631), 
a learned man and a genuine poet, delighted in a style of 
poetry often so far-fetched and fantastic as to deprive it 
of much of its value in the eyes of later readers, and there 
arose a group of graceful if somewhat artificial lyric poets 
who contented themselves with writing slight and pretty 
songs. Among these are Richard Lovelace (161 8-1 658), 
Thomas Ca rezv (1598- 1639), and Sir John Suckling (1609- 
1641). Each of these men holds an assured though 
minor place in literature by virtue of comparatively few 
poems ; yet each has contributed to it at least one lyric 
which has become a classic. The same fantastic spirit 
which we have noted in Donne runs through much of 
their work, and it is also distinctly traceable in that of a 
group of poets in other respects widely separated. These 
are the religious poets, George Herbert (1 592-1634), 
Richard Crashaw (161 3-1650), Henry Vanghan (1622- 
1695), and Francis Quarles ( 1 592-1644). Robert Herrick 
(1591-1674), rises above these by his greater 

v •!_ j j* *. j • a1_ c Robert Herrick. 

simplicity and directness, and in the finer 
quality of his lyrical gift. His limpid and altogether 
charming verse is troubled by no depth of thought or 
storm of passion. The most of his verse reflects the 
pagan spirit of those who lie at ease in the warm sun- 
shine ; content to enjoy, they sigh that life is but a day, 
and lament as the lengthening shadow draws near. The 
closing verse of his poem, To Corinna going a Maying, is 
a good example of his familiar mood : the inevitable 
chill of regret creeps into the sunshiny lyric of May day, 
and his laughter ends in a sigh. 

" Come, let us go )4t while we are in our prime ! 
And take the harmless folly of the time ! 



Ni 



212 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

We shall grow old apace, and die 

Before we know our liberty. 

Our life is short ; and our days run 

As fast away as does the sun : — 
And as a vapour, or a drop of rain 
Once lost, can ne'er be found again : 

So when you or I are made 

A fable, song, or fleeting shade ; 

All love, all liking, all delight 

Lies drowned with us in endless night. 
Then while time serves, and we are but decaying, 
Come, my Corinna ! come, let's go a Maying." 

There is a captivating naturalness and freshness in 
Herrick's note; the rural England of his time is green 
forever in his verse, the hedgerows are abloom, the May- 
poles gay with garlands. He sings 

" Of brooks, of blossoms, buds and bowers, 
Of April, May, and June, and July flowers." * 

In Herrick's time England was racked with civil war, 
but neither the strife of Religions nor the tumults in the 
State seem to shatter his Arcadia ; while king and Parlia- 
ment are in deadly grapple, Herrick sings his dainty love- 
songs to Julia and Althea, and " babbles of green fields." 

In the midst of such poetry as this, slight, charming, or 
fantastic, there rises the mighty voice of Milton. In 

Herrick and Lycidas, which may be said to conclude the 
Milton. poems of his earlier period, Milton too asks 

the pagan question, " Seeing that life is short, is it not 
better to enjoy ? " but only to meet it with triumphant de- 
nial. This famous passage becomes of especial interest 
when we think that it was probably written with such 
poets as Carewand Herrick in mind ; when we recognize 
in it the high seriousness and religious faith of Puritanism, 
squarely confronting the nation's lighter mood. 

* " Hesperides." 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LYRISTS. 213 

" Alas ! what boots it with uncessant care 
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, 
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse ? 
Were it not better done, as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Nesera's hair ? 
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 
To scorn delights and live laborious days ; 
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, 
And slits the thin-spun life. ' But not the praise,' 
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears : 
' Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 
Nor in the glistering foil 
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, 
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; 
As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.' " 

— Lyczdas, lines 64 to 85. 



SELECTIONS FROM THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
LYRISTS. 

TO DAFFADILS. 

Fair Daffadils, we weep to see 

You haste away so soon ; 
As yet the early rising sun 

Has not attained his noon. 
Stay, stay, 

Until the hasting day 
Has run 

But to the even-song ; 
And, having prayed together, we 

Will go with you along. 



We have short time to stay, as you 
We have as short a spring ; 



214 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

As quick a growth to meet decay, 
As you, or anything, 

We die 
As your hours do, and dry 

Away, 
Like to the summer's rain ; 
Or as the pearls of morning's dew, 
Ne'er to be found again. 

—R. Herrick. 

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME. 

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may : 

Old Time is still a-flying ; 
And this same flower that smiles to-day, 

To-morrow will be dying. 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun, 

The higher he's a-getting, 
The sooner will his race be run, 

And nearer he's to setting. 

That age is best, which is the first, 
When youth and blood are warmer ; 

But being spent, the worse, and worst 
Times, still succeed the former. 

— Then be not coy, but use your time, 

And while ye may, go marry ; 
For having lost but once your prime, 

You may forever tarry. 

—R. Herrick. 

VERTUE. 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 
The bridall of the earth and skie : 
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night ; 
For thou must die. 

Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave 
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, 
Thy root is ever in its grave, 

And thou must die. 



THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LYRISTS. 215 

Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses, 
A box where sweets compacted lie, 
My musick shows ye have your closes, 
And all must die. 

Only a sweet and vertuous soul, 
Like seasoned timber, never gives ; 
But though the whole world turn to coal, 
Then chiefly lives. 

— George Herbert. 

GOING TO THE WARS. 
To Lucasta. 

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, 

That from the nunnery 
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind 

To war and arms I fly. 

True : a new mistress now I chase, 

The first foe in the field ; 
And with a stronger faith embrace 

A sword, a horse, a shield. 

Yet this inconstancy is such, 

As you too shall adore ; 
I could not love thee, dear, so much, 

Loved I not honor more. 

— Sir Richard Lovelace. 

THE RETREATE. 

Happy those early dayes, when I 
Shined in my Angell infancy ! 
Before I understood this place 
Appointed for my second race, 
Or taught my soul to fancy ought 
But a white, celestiall thought ; 
When yet I had not walked above 
A mile or two from my first Love, 
And looking back, at that short space, 
Could see a glimpse of his bright face ; 
When on * 'Lie I 7 ',•;.■ 'd or Flowre 
My gazing soul would dwell an houre, 



2 1 6 PERIOD OF IT A LI A N I NFL UENCE. 

And in those weaker glories spy 
Some shadows of eternity ; 
Before I taught my tongue to wound 
My conscience with a sinfull sound, 
Or had the black art to dispence 
A sev'rall sinne to ev'ry sense, 
But felt through all this fleshly dresse 
Bright shootes of everlastingnesse. 

O how I long to travell back, 
And tread again that ancient track ! 
That I might once more reach that plaine, 
Where first I left my glorious traine ; 
From whence th' inlightened spirit sees 
That shady City of Palme trees. 
But ah ! my soul with too much stay 
Is drunk, and staggers in the way ! 
Some men a forward motion love, 
But I by backward steps would move ; 
And, when this dust falls to the urn, 
In that state I came, return. 

— He?iry Vaughan. 

JOHN MILTON. 

Shakespeare, the poet of man, was born in rural 

England ; John Milton, into whose remote and lofty 

verse humanity enters so little, was born 

Boyhood at . 

London, 1608- m Bread Street in the heart of London, 

1624. ,. 

December 9, 1608. 

His early years were passed in a sober and orderly 
Puritan household among influences of refinement and 
culture. His father, John Milton, was a scrivener, an 
occupation somewhat corresponding to the modern con- 
veyancer, but he was also well known as a musical 
composer. The younger Milton's faculty for music had 
thus an opportunity for early development, a fact of 
especial interest when we recall the distinctively musical 
character of his verse. 

Milton was early destined " for the study of humane 



JOHN MILTON. 2iJ 

letters," and given every educational advantage. He 
had private instruction, and about 1620 was sent to the 
famous Grammar School of St. Paul.* Here, to use his 
own expression, he worked " with eagerness," laying the 
foundation of his future blindness by intense application. 
He began to experiment in poetry, and we have para- 
phrases of two of the Psalms made by him at this time. 

In 1624 Milton entered Christ's College, Cambridge, 
where he continued to work with the same steady and 
regulated enthusiasm. His youth was spot- Cambridge. 
less and high-minded, with perhaps a touch l62 4-i632. 
of that austerity which deepened as he grew older. 
His face had an exquisitely refined and thoughtful 
beauty; his soft, light brown hair fell to his shoulders 
after the Cavalier fashion ; his figure was well knit but 
slender; his complexion, ''exceeding fair." From his 
somewhat delicate beauty and from his blameless life he 
gained the College nick-name of " the Lady." The 
year after he entered College he wrote his first original 
poem, On the Death of a fair Infant Dying of a Cough, and 
to this period also belong the resonant Hymn to The 
Nativity, and other short pieces. 

After leaving Cambridge, Milton spent nearly six 
years at his father's country house at Horton, a village 
near Windsor, and about seventeen miles Horton. 
from London. Here he lived with books 
and nature, studying the classics and physical science, 
and leaving his studious quiet only for an occasional 
trip to town to learn something new in music or in 
mathematics. 

Milton's L Allegro\ and II Penseroso,\ composed at this 

time, reflect both the young 1 poet and his L'Aiiegro 
' ,., and n Pen " 

surroundings. Rustic life and superstitions seroso. 

are there blended with* idyllic pictures of the Horton 
* See supra, pp. 67, 209. f See p. 229. % See p. 234. 



2 1 8 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFL UENCE. 

landscape. In L Allegro we hear the ploughman whis- 
tle at his furrow, the milkmaid sing at her work; we 
see the 

" Meadows trim and daisies pied, 
Shallow brooks and rivers wide," 

or mark the neighboring towers of Windsor 

" Bosomed high in tufted trees." 

In both poems we detect Milton himself, a refined and 
serious nature, exquisitely responsive to whatever is 
best in life, with a quick and by no means narrow appre- 
ciation of things beautiful. The poems suggest to us a 
youthful Milton dreaming of gorgeous and visionary 
splendors in the long summer twilights, delighting in 
the plays of Jonson and Shakespeare, and spending 
lonely midnights in the loftiest speculations of phil- 
osophy ; a Milton whose beauty-loving and religious 
nature was moved by the solemn ritual of the Church of 
England under the "high embowed roof" of a cathe- 
dral. In these poems, especially L Allegro, Milton is 
very close to the Elizabethans. In their tinge of ro- 
mance they remind us of Spenser, who, according to 
Masson, was Milton's poetic master, while in their lyrical 
movement they strikingly resemble certain songs of 
Fletcher in his pastoral drama, The Faithful Shepherdess * 

But Comus (1634), Milton's next work, 
Comus. v °^ n . 

shows the decided growth of a new and dis- 
tinctively Puritan spirit. In its form, indeed, Comics be- 
longs to the earlier age. It is a mask — one of those 
gorgeous dramatic spectacles which Renaissance Eng- 
land had learned from Italy, the favorite entertainment 
at the festivals of the rich, with which Ben Jonson so 
often delighted the Court of James. Comus has music 

*See the beautiful lyric, "Shepherds all and Maidens Fair," in act ii. 
sc. 1, and " Song of the River God," in act iv. sc. 1 of this play. 



JOHN MILTON. 219 

and dancing, and it affords the requisite opportunity for 
scenic effects, yet there breathes through it the grow- 
ing strain of moral earnestness. It shows us how purity 
and innocence can thread the darkest and most tangled 
ways of earth, unharmed and invincible, through the in- 
herent might of goodness. In noble and memorable 
words Milton declares that if we once lose faith in this 
essential power of righteousness, and in the ultimate tri- 
umph of good over evil which that power is destined to 
secure, the very foundations of the universe give way. 

" Against the threats 
Of malice or of sorcery, or that power 
Which erring men call chance, this I hold firm : 
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, 
Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled ; 
Yea, even that which Mischief meant most harm 
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory. 
But evil on itself shall back recoil, 
And mix no more with goodness, when at last, 
Gathered like scum, and settled to itself, 
It shall be in eternal restless change 
Self-fed and self-consumed. If this fail, 
The pillared firmament is rottenness, 
And earth's base built on stubble." * 

We see the powers of heaven descend to protect 
beleagured innocence, and in the parting words of the 
attendant spirit we find both the practical lesson of the 
mask and the guiding principle of Milton : 

" Mortals, that would follow me, 
Love Virtue ; she alone is free. 
She can teach ye how to climb 
Higher than the sphery chime ; 
Or if Virtue feeble were, 
Heaven itself would stoop to her." * 

In his next poem, the pastoral elegy of Lycidas (1637), 

* " Comus." 



2 20 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

the space between Milton and the Elizabethans continues 
to widen. From the enthusiasm for Virtue, 

Lycidas. , - 

he passes to an outburst of wrath and 
denunciation against those in the Church whom he con- 
sidered the faithless shepherds of the flock. 

" The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed," 

but the hour of retribution is at hand ; already the 

" two-handed engine at the door, 
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." * 

The first thirty years of Milton's life had thus been 
lived almost wholly " in the still air of delightful studies."f 
Travels. 1638- Industrious and select reading was part of 
l639 ' his systematic preparation for the life work 

he set himself. Up to this time he wrote little, although 
that little was enough to give him an honorable place 
among the poets of England ; but already he was full of 
great designs, writing in 1637, " I am pluming my wings 
for a flight." To all he had learned from books he now 
added the widening influences of travel. 

Leaving England in April, 1638, he passed through 
Paris to Italy, meeting many learned and famous men, 
among the rest the old astronomer Galileo, to whom he 
refers in the early part of Paradise Lost. 

Meanwhile the civil troubles in England seemed gather- 
ing to a crisis, and Milton resolved to shorten his trip, 
because, as he wrote, " I considered it base that while 
my fellow-countrymen were fighting at home for liberty, 
I should be travelling abroad for intellectual culture." 

We learn from the Epitapliiun Dauwnis, a beautiful Latin 
elegy written at this time (1639), that Milton was already 

* "Lycidas." For full analysis of this passage see Ruskin's " Sesame and 
Lilies." 

f Milton, " The Reason of Church Government," Int. book ii. 



JOHN MILTON. 221 

planning a great epic poem, but this project was to be 
rudely interrupted. England was on the brink of civil 
war, and after long years of preparation, 

_,., • i * • i • i i 1 • • Return to Eng- 

Milton put aside his cherished ambitions land, and Prose 

, . , , . , • r i Works. 1639-1660. 

and pursuits, and freely gave up his life and 
genius to the service of his country. Except for occa- 
sional sonnets, the greatest poet in England forced him- 
self to write prose for more than twenty years. Most of 
this prose was written in the heat of " hoarse disputes," 
and is often marred by the bitterness and personal abuse 
which marked the controversies of that troubled time ; 
but this is redeemed in many places by earnestness and 
a noble eloquence. 

Prominent among the works of this prose period are 
the Tractate on Education (1644), and the splendid Areo- 
pagitica, a burning plea for the liberty of the press, of 
which it has been said : " Its defense of books and the 
freedom of books, will last as long as there are writers 
and readers of books." * 

Meanwhile (1643), Milton had taken a hasty and 
unfortunate step in marrying Mary Powel, a young 
girl of less than half his age, of Royalist family, 
who proved unsuited to him in disposition and edu- 
cation. After the execution of Charles I. (1649) Milton 
ranged himself on the side of those who had taken 
this tremendous step, in a pamphlet on The Tenure 
of Kings and Magistrates, and a month after its 
publication, was made the Latin, or foreign, Secretary 
to the newly established Commonwealth. His pen 
continued to be busy for the State, until in 1652 his 
eyes failed him through over-use, and he was stricken 
with total blindness. In this year his wife died, leav- 
ing him with three little girls. In 1656 he married 
Katherine Woodcock, who lived but little more than 

* " Milton," Rev. Stopford Brooke, p. 45 (Classical Writers Series). 



2 2 2 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFL UENCE. 

a year, and to whom he paid a touching tribute in 
one of his sonnets.* 

In these later years of Milton's life, during which he 
suffered blindness, sorrow, and broken health, the cause 
The Restora- f° r which he had sacrificed so much was 
Sic' p er e io P d" l° st > an d England brought again under the 
1660-1674. rule of a stuart king. Milton had been 

so vehement an advocate of the Parliament that we 
wonder at his escape ; but, from whatever reason, he 
was not excepted from the general pardon put forth 
by Charles II. after his return (August 29, 1660). In the 
riotous years that followed, when England, casting off 
decency and restraint, plunged into " the mad orgy of 
the Restoration," Milton entered in earnest upon the 
composition of Paradise Lost, singing with voice 

" unchanged 
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days, 
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, 
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, 
And solitude." t 

In his little house in Bunhill fields, near the London 
in which the pleasure-loving king jested at faith and 
honor, and held his shameless court amidst 

" The barbarous dissonance 
Of Bacchus and his revellers," J 

the old poet lived his life of high contemplation and 
undaunted labor. At no time does Milton seem to us 
more worthy of himself ; he is so heroic that we hardly 
dare to pity him. But wherever the fault lay, his daugh 
ters, whose privilege it should have been to minister 
to him, greatly increased his burdens. They are said to 

* " Methought I saw my late espoused Saint 

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave," etc. 

f " Paradise Lost," bk. vii. % Ibid, 



JOHN MILTON. 223 

have sold his books without his knowledge, and two of 
them counseled his maid-servant to " cheat him in his 
marketings." 

When we reflect that the eldest daughter was but four- 
teen at the Restoration, and that the education of all 
had been neglected, we are inclined to judge less hardly, 
but we can scarcely wonder that Milton should have 
sought some means of relief from these intolerable dis- 
comforts. This he happily found through his marriage 
with Elizabeth Minshall, in 1663. Yet even when matters 
were at the worst, Milton seems to have borne them with 
a beautiful fortitude, " having a certain serenity of mind 
not condescending to little things." His one faithful 
daughter, Deborah, speaks of his cheerfulness under his 
sufferings from the gout, and describes him as " the soul 
of conversation." In the spirit of his Sonnet on his 
Blindness* he was content to "only stand and wait," 
sending up the prayer out of his darkness, 

11 So much the rather thou Celestial light shine inward, "t 

The words of one who visited him at this time help to 
bring Milton before us, dressed neatly in black, and seated 
in a large armchair in a room with dark green hangings, 
his soft hair still falling over his shoulders, his sightless 
eyes still beautiful and clear. 

Paradise Lost was published in 1667, to be followed in 
1 67 1 by Paradise Regained. With the latter poem ap- 
peared the noble drama of Samson Agonistes (or the 
wrestler), and with it Milton's work was ended. He 
died on November 8, 1674, so quietly that those with 
him knew not when he passed away. 

" Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail 
Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt, 
Dispraise or blame ; nothing but well and fair, 
And what may quiet us in a death so noble." % 
* See p. 240. f " Paradise Lost," bk. iv. %" Samson Agonistes." 



224 PERIOD OF ITALIAN IXFLUENCE. 

We are stimulated and "thrilled by the thought of Mil- 
ton's life, as at the sight of some noble and heroic action. 
Milton's ideal Obviously it is not free from our common 
of Life. human shortcomings, but in its whole ideal 

and in its large results, we feel that it moves habitually on 
the higher levels, and is animated by no vulgar or ordi- 
nary aims. It is much that as a great poet Milton loved 
beauty, that as a great scholar he sought after truth. 
It is more, that above the scholar's devotion to knowl- 
edge, Milton set the citizen's devotion to country, the 
patriot's passionate love of liberty; that above even 
the employment of his great poetic gift, he set the 
high resolve to make his life "a true poem," and 
to live: 

"As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye." * 

He has accordingly left us an example of solemn self- 
consecration to a lofty purpose, early undertaken, and 
steadfastly and consistently pursued. Milton's life was 
lived at high tension ; he not only set an exacting 
standard for himself, he was also inclined to impose it 
upon others. He is so sublime that some of us are in- 
clined to be a trifle ill at ease in his presence, or are apt 
to be repelled by a strain of severity far different from 
the sweet companionableness of Shakespeare. In Mil- 
ton's stringent and austere ideal, we miss at times the 
saving grace of Shakespeare's charity, or we are almost 
moved to exclaim with Sir Toby: 

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no 
more cakes and ale ? " t 

In Samson Agonistes, when Delilah pleads before her 
husband that she has sinned through weakness, she is 
met by an uncompromising reply : 

* See p. 240, end of Sonnet on his arriving at the age of twenty-three, 
f " Twelfth Night," actii. sc. 3. 



JOHN MILTON. 225 

" if weakness may excuse, 
What murderer, traitor, parricide, 
Incestuous, sacreligious, but may plead it ? 
All wickedness is weakness, that plea therefore 
With God or man will gain thee no remission." * 



From such a rigorous insistence on condemnation in 
strict accord with the offense, our minds revert to Portia's 
inspired plea for mercy, f or to Isabella's searching 
question : 

" How would you be 
If He which is the top of judgment should 
But judge you as you are ? " % 

However we may appreciate these differences in the 
spirit of two great poets, we do Milton wrong if we fail 
to honor and reverence him for that in which he was 
supremely great. We must remember that this intense 
zeal for righteousness was a master passion in the highest 
spirits of Milton's time, and that it is hard to combine 
zeal with tolerance. It is but natural that in the midst 
of the corrupt England of the Restoration, the almost 
solitary voice of the nation's better self could not proph- 
esy smooth things. This Puritan severity is especially 
marked in the three great poems of Milton's later life. 
As a young man he had chosen a purely romantic sub- 
ject for his projected epic, — the story of Arthur ; his 
maturer interests led him to abandon this for a purely 
religious and doctrinal one ; he treated of the fall .of man 
and the origin of evil, that he might " justify the ways of 
God to men." Paradise Lost, with its se- 

. . Paradise Lost. 

quel, Paradise Regained, constitute the one 

great contribution of the English genius to the epic 

poetry of the world. The style of these great works 

alone shows genius of the highest and rarest kind. By 

*• 
* " Samson Agonistes," 1. 831. f " Merchant of Venice," act iv. sc. 1. 
X " Measure for Measure," act ii. sc. 2. 



226 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

the incomparable dignity and majesty of the verse, with 
its prolonged and solemn music, and the curious involu- 
tion of its slowly unfolding sentences, we are lifted out 
of the ordinary or the trivial, into the incalculable spaces 
of that region into which it is the poet's object to trans- 
port us. In Paradise Lost, caught in the tremendous 
sweep of Milton's imagination, we see our whole uni- 
verse, with its circling sun and planets hanging suspended 
in the black abyss of chaos, 

" In bigness like a star." 

Heaven, " the deep tract of Hell," and that illimitable and 
chaotic region which lies between, make up the vast 
Miltonic background, where legions of rebellious angels 
strive with God, and wherein is enacted the mysterious 
drama, not of men, but of the race of Man. 

The attitude of Shakespeare toward that unseen and 
mysterious region which lies beyond the limits of our 
Milton and numan experience, was that of the New 
Shakespeare. Learning. He places us in the midst of our 
familiar world, and there we only catch at times the half- 
intelligible whisper of voices coming out of those blank 
surrounding spaces which no man can enter. Hamlet, 
slipping out of this little earthly circle of noise and light, 
can but whisper on the brink of the great blackness of 
darkness, that 

" the rest is silence." 

But Milton, with the new daring of Puritanism, took 
for his province that " undiscovered country " beyond the 
walls of this goodly prison, as Shakespeare, through 
Hamlet, called the world. At the beginning of his great 
epic he invokes " the Heavenly Muse," 

" That on the secret top 
Of Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspire, 
That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed, 



SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 227 

In the beginning how the heaven and earth 
Rose out of chaos." * 

He looks to the Hill of Sion, 

" And Siloa's brook that flowed 
Fast by the oracle of God," * 

rather than to Parnassus, and by Celestial guidance 

intends to soar " above the Aonian mount," and to 

pursue 

" Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." * 

SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 

l'allegro. 

Hence, loathed Melancholy, 

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born 

In Stygian cave forlorn, \ 

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy: 

Find out some uncouth cell 5 

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings 
And the night raven sings, 

There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks 
As ragged as thy locks, 
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 

But come, thou goddess fair and free, 
In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne, 
And by men heart- easing Mirth 
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth 

With two sister Graces more, 15 

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore : 
Or whether (as some sager sing) 
The frolic wind that breathes the spring, 
Zephyr, with Aurora playing 

* " Paradise Lost," bk. i. 

6. Jealous. — The picture is that of a hen brooding on her nest, suspicious 
or jealous of intrusion. 

7. Sings. — In this uncouth cell the only singing is the raven's croak. 
Contrast this with the singing of the lark, the bird of Dawn, 1. 41-42, infra. 

10. Cimmerian. — Who were the Cimmerians? 
12. Ycleped. — Named or called. 



228 PERIOD OF ITA LI A N I NFL UENCE. 

As he met her once a-Maying, 20 

There, on beds of violets blue 

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, 

Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, 

So buxom, blithe, and debonair. 

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 25 

Jest, and youthful jollity, 
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek 

And love to live in dimple sleek ; 30 

Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 
And Laughter holding both his sides. 
Come, and trip it, as you go 
On the light fantastic toe ; 

And in thy right hand lead with thee 35 

The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty 
And, if I give thee honor due, 
Mirth, admit me of thy crew, 
To live with her, and live with thee, 
In unreproved pleasures free : — 40 

To hear the lark begin his flight, 
And*, singing, startle the dull night, 
From his watch-tower in the skies, 
Till the dappled dawn doth rise ; 

Then to come, in spite of sorrow, 45 

And at my window bid good-morrow, 
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, 
Or the twisted eglantine, 
While the cock, with lively din, 
Scatters the rear of darkness thin, 50 

24. Buxom. — Bowsome, flexible, obedient. Cf. use in Chaucer's "Good 
Counseil " (see p. 59). See also Skeat's Ety. Diet. 

25. Nymph. — /. e., Euphrosyne. 

38. He is still addressing Euphrosyne or Mirth. 

39. Her. — /. e. , Liberty, the mountain nymph. 

45. To come. — Probably depends on "to hear " (1. 41), i. e. , to hear the lark 
begin his flight, and then descending come " in the spite 0/" sorrow," etc., to 
the speaker's window. This description is not true to nature, from which 
charge Professor Masson attempts to defend MUton by a different interpre- 
tation. See note in Masson's edition. 



SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 229 

And to the stack, or the barn-door, 

Stoutly struts his dames before ; 

Oft listening how the hounds and horn 

Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, 

From the. side of some hoar hill, 55 

Through the high wood echoing shrill ; 

Some time walking, not unseen, 

By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green, 

Right against the eastern gate 

Where the great sun begins his state 60 

Robed in flames and amber light, 

The clouds in thousand liveries dight, 

While the ploughman, near at hand, 

Whistles o'er the furrowed land, 

And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 65 

And the mower whets his scythe, 

And every shepherd tells his tale 

Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 

Whilst the landscape round it measures : 70 

Russet lawns, and fallows gray, 

Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 

Mountains, on whose barren breast 

The labouring clouds do often rest ; 

Meadows trim, with daisies pied, 75 

Shallow brooks, and rivers wide ; 

Towers and battlements it sees 

Bosomed high in tufted trees, 

Where, perhaps, some beauty lies, 

The cynosure of neighbouring eyes. 80 

Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes 

From betwixt two aged oaks, 

Where Corydon and Thyrsis met, 

Are at their savoury dinner set 

Of herbs, and other country messes, 85 

Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses, 

And then in haste her bower she leaves, 
80. Cynosure. — The Greek name for the constellation of the Lesser Bear, 
which contains the Pole Star. Phoenician mariners directed their eyes to this 
in steering, hence any thing or person on whom the eyes were fastened came 
to be called a cynosure. — Masson's " Notes on L' Allegro." 



230 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

With Thestylis to bind the sheaves ; 

Or, if the earlier season lead, 

To the tanned haycock in the mead. 90 

Sometimes, with secure delight, 
The upland hamlets will invite, 
When the merry bells ring round, 
And the jocund rebecks sound 

To many a youth and many a maid 95 

Dancing in the checkered shade, 
And young and old come forth to play 
On a sunshine holyday, 
Till the livelong daylight fail : 

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, 100 

With stories told of many a feat : 
How fairy Mab the junkets eat ; 
She was pinched, and pulled, she said ; 
And he, by friar's lantern led, 

Tells how the drudging goblin sweat 105 

To earn his cream-bowl duly set, 
When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn, 
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn 
That ten day-labourers could not end ; 
Then lies him down the lubber fiend, no 

And, stretched out all the chimney's length, 
Basks at the fire his hair}' strength, 
And, crop-full, out of doors he flings, 
Ere the first cock his matin rings. 

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, 115 

By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. 

Towered cities please us then, 
And the busy hum of men, 

94. Rebecks. — A rude stringed instrument, afterwards developed into the 
violin. 

101. Stories. — The superstitious rustics tell their various adventures with 
supernatural beings supposed to haunt the field and farmhouse. Each fairy 
and goblin has his own name and office. Mab pinches the idle sen-ants ; 
Friar Rush, used by Milton for Will-o'-the-wisp, leads the rustic into 
bogs ; the " drudging goblin," or " lubber," fiend, performs household tasks 
in return for a " cream-bowl duly set" for him to drink. Allusions to these 
beings are frequent in older literature. Cf. " Midsummer Night's Dream," 
etc., etc. 



SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 231 

Where throngs of knights and barons bold, 

In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, 120 

With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 

Rain influence, and judge the prize 

Of wit or arms, while both contend 

To win her grace whom all commend. 

There let Hymen oft appear 125 

In saffron robe, with taper clear, 

And pomp, and feast, and revelry, 

With mask and antique pageantry ; 

Such sights as youthful poets dream 

On summer eves by haunted stream. 130 

Then to the well-trod stage anon, 

If Jonson's learned sock be on, 

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 

Warble his native wood-notes wild. 

And ever, against eating cares, 135 

Lap me in soft Lydian airs 
Married to immortal verse, 
Such as the meeting soul may pierce 
In notes with many a winding bout 
Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 140 

With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 
The melting voice through mazes running, 
Untwisting all the chains that tie 
The hidden soul of harmony ; 
That Orpheus' self may heave his head, 145 

120. Weeds. — From A.-S. waed, clothing. Weeds of Peace, holiday dress, 
not armor. 

122. Influence. — Ladies' eyes are likened to stars, which astrologers sup- 
posed to influence human events. 

132. Sock. — The drama of the sock (Comedy, in performing which the 
actors wore low-heeled shoes) rather than that of the buskin (Tragedy, in 
which the actors wore high-heeled boots) best suits the mood of "L' Allegro." 

136. The Lydians, a people of Asia Minor, were noted for their effemin- 
acy. Their music was soft and voluptuous, and corresponded to their na- 
tional character, while the Dorian music was majestic and inspiring (see 
"Par. Lost," bk. i. 1. 549) adapted to the bass as the Lydian to the tenor 
voice. See Dryden's " Alexander's *■ Feast," 1. 79; Spenser's "Faerie 
Queene," bk. iii. cant. i. 1. 40. Why should the speaker in " L' Allegro," 
prefer this special kind of music ? 



232 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

From golden slumber on a bed 

Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear 

Such strains as would have won the ear 

Of Pluto to have quite set free 

His half-regained Eurydice. 150 

These delights if thou canst give, 

Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 

IL PENSEROSO* 

Hence, vain deluding joys, f 

The brood of Folly, without father bred, 

How little you bested, 

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys : 

Dwell in some idle brain, 5 

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess 

As thick and numberless 

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, 

Or likest hovering dreams, 

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. 10 

But, hail ! thou goddess sage and holy, 

Hail, divinest Melancholy, 

Whose saintly visage is too bright 

To hit the sense of human sight, 

And, therefore, to our weaker view, 15 

O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue ; 

Black, but such as in esteem 

Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, 

* Penseroso. — Milton has here made a slip in his Italian; the word should 
have been pensieroso. II Pensieroso, the meditative or thoughtful man. As 
the word is here used, one who enjoys the pleasures of quiet contemplation. 

f Lines 1-30. — Compare the opening lines of " L' Allegro, "and note how 
carefully the contrast or antithesis is preserved. 

3. Bested. — I.e. how little you advantage or assist; a peculiar use. Bested 
means literally placed, from A.S. stede, a place, and the verb to set fast, to 
plant. Cf. ill-bested, badly off. Compare "to stand in good stead." In 
what English compound words is stead found ? Look up use of this word 
by Shakespeare in Concordance, and see " The Bible Word Book," and 
Dictionaries of Richardson and Skeat. 

6. Fond. — Silly, foolish. Cf. Shakespeare, and give instances of Shake- 
speare's use of this word. See note to " Merchant of Venice," p. 160 



SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 233 

Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove 

To set her beauty's praise above 20 

The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended : 

Yet thou art higher far descended. 

Thee bright-haired Vesta, long of yore, 

To solitary Saturn bore ; 

His daughter she ; in Saturn's reign 25 

Such mixture was not held a stain : 

Oft in glimmering bowers and glades 

He met her, and in secret shades 

Of woody Ida's inmost grove, 

Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. 30 

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, 
Sober, steadfast, and demure, 
All in a robe of darkest grain 
Flowing with majestic train, 

And sable stole of cypress lawn 35 

Over thy decent shoulders drawn. 
Come, but keep thy wonted state, 
With even step, and musing gait, 
And looks commercing with the skies, 
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes : 40 

There, held in holy passion still, 
Forget thyself to marble, till, 
With a sad leaden downward cast, 
Thou fix them on the earth as fast. 
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, 45 

Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet 
And hears the Muses, in a ring, 
Aye round about Jove's altar sing. 
And add to these retired Leisure, 

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure. 50 

But first, and chiefest, with thee bring, 

19. Ethiop queen. — See Cassiepea, or Cassiopea, in Class. Diet. Explain 
allusions and the peculiar force of " starred." 

33. Grain. — Red or purple ; so used by older writers. This color was 
obtained from a small insect which, when dried, had the appearance of a seed 
or grain. See " Par. L.," bk. v. 1. 285. " Mid. N. D.,"act i. sc. 2, 1. 95. 

35. Stole. — The Stola was a long robe worn by Roman ladies. Stole also 
means the scarf worn by a priest. Spenser uses stole for hood or veil, in 
which sense Hales understands it here throughout. 



234 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Him that yon soars on golden wing, 
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, 
The cherub Contemplation ; 

And the mute silence hist along, 55 

'Less Philomel will deign a song, 
In her sweetest saddest plight, 
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, 
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke 
Gently o'er the accustomed oak. 60 

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, 
Most musical, most melancholy, 
Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among, 
I woo, to hear thy even-song ; 

And, missing thee, I walk unseen 65 

On the dry smooth-shaven green, 
To behold the wandering moon 
Riding near her highest noon, 
Like one that had been led astray 

Through the heaven's wide pathless way, 70 

And oft, as if her head she bowed, 
Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 
Oft, on a plat of rising ground, 
I hear the far-off curfew sound 

Over some wide watered shore, 75 

Swinging slow with sullen roar ; 
Or, if the air will not permit, 
Some still, removed place will fit, 
Where glowing embers through the room 
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom ; 80 

Far from all resort of mirth, 
Save the cricket on the hearth, 

54. Contemplation. — See Ezekiel, ch. x. ; also "Paradise Lost," bk. vi. 1. 
750-759- Milton here names one of the cherubs in Ezekiel's vision, Contem- 
plation. It was, with writers of this time, a word of high meaning, denoting 
the faculty by which the clearest notion of Divine things could be attained. 
See Masson's Ed. 

74. Cut-few. — What was the curfew? 

78. Removed. — Remote. Masson remarks that whereas in " L' Allegro" 
the evening indoors did not begin till line 117, or near the end of the 
poem, here we are indoors at line 77, with three-fifths of the poem to 
come. 



SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 235 

Or the bellman's drowsy charm 

To bless the doors from nightly harm. 

Or let my lamp, at midnight hour, 85 

Be seen in some high lonely tower 
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear 
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere 
The spirit of Plato, to unfold 

What worlds or what vast regions hold 90 

The immortal mind that hath forsook. 
Her mansion in this fleshly nook, 
And of those demons that are found 
In fire, air, flood, or underground, 

Whose power hath a true consent, 95 

With planet or with element. 
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy, 
In sceptred pall, come sweeping by, 
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, 
Or the tale of Troy divine. 100 

83. Bellman. — The watchman in olden times used a bell. " Half past 
nine and a fine cloudy evening," may be remembered yet as a cry of the 
watchman in some towns before the time of gas ; but the older watchmen 
mingled pious benedictions with their meteorological information. Mas- 
son's Ed. 

87. Bear. — Constellation of Ursa Major, which never sets. 

88. Hermes. — Trismegistus (with whom the Greek Hermes was identified) 
was held in great reverence by the Neo-Platonists as the supposed source of 
knowledge. 

88. Unsphere. — References to " the spheres " are common in Milton, who 
was imbued with the Ptolemaic system. He had also met the astronomer 
Galileo. See supra, p. 222 ; cf. Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice," note on 
p. 181. Such frequent references in writers of this time show the general 
interest awakened by the teachings and theories of Galileo and Copernicus. 

93. Demon, an indwelling spirit, not a devil, from Gr. dalfiuv, meant 
originally, an inferior god, or often a guardian spirit. Look up Socrates' 
belief in his attendant genius or demon. The " demons " here referred to are 
salamanders, sylphs, nymphs, and gnomes, the spirits of what were anciently 
called the four elements of all things. See Intro, to "The Rape of the 
Lock," p. 276 ; " The Rape of the Lock," canto i. 1. 41, etc., also Pope's 
dedication to the poem. ► 

95. Consent. — Connection. 

98. Sceptered Pall— Palla, a robe. 



236 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 

Or what (though rare) of later age 
Ennobled hath the buskined stage. 

But, O, sad virgin, that thy power 
Might raise Musasus from his bower ; 
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing 105 

Such notes as, warbled to the string, 
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek, 
And made hell grant what love did seek ; 
Or call up him that left half told 

The story of Cambuscan bold, no 

Of Camball, and of Algarsife, 
And who had Canace to wife 
That owned the virtuous ring and glass, 
And of the wondrous horse of brass, 
On which the Tartar king did ride ; 11$ 

And if aught else great bards beside 
In sage and solemn tunes have sung, 
Of turneys, and of trophies hung, 
Of forests, and enchantments drear, 
Where more is meant than meets the ear. 120 

Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, 
Till civil-suited Morn appear, 
Not tricked and frounced as she was wont, 
With the Attic boy to hunt, 

But kercheft in a comely cloud, 125 

While rocking winds are piping loud ; 
Or ushered with a shower still, 
When the gust hath blown his fill, 
Ending on the rustling leaves, 

With minute drops from off the eaves. 130 

And, when the sun begins to fling 
His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring 
To arched walks of twilight groves, 
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, 

102. Buskined. — See " L'Allegro," p. 233, note 132. 

105. Orpheus. — See "L'Allegro," 1. 145. 

no. Cambuscan. — "The Squire's Tale," by Chaucer, which he left un- 
finished, and which was a great favorite with Milton. 

Lines 1 16-120. — " These certainly refer to Spenser, probably also to 
Ariostoand Tasso." — Masson. 

124. Attic boy. — Cephalus. 



SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 237 

Of pine, or monumental oak, 135 

Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke 

Was never heard the nymphs to daunt 

Or fright them from their hallowed haunt. 

There in close covert by some brook, 

Where no profaner eye may look, 140 

Hide me from day's garish eye, 

While the bee, with honeyed thigh, 

That at her flowery work doth sing, 

And the waters murmuring, 

With such concert as they keep, 145 

Entice the dewy-feathered sleep ; 

And, let some strange mysterious dream 

Wave at his wings, in airy stream 

Of lively portraiture displayed, 

Softly on my eyelids laid. 150 

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe 

Above, about, or underneath, 

Sent by some spirit to mortals good, 

Or the unseen genius of the wood. 

But let my due feet never fail 155 

To walk the studious cloisters' pale, 
And love the high embowered roof, 
With antique pillars massy proof, 
And storied windows richly dight, 

Casting a dim religious light : 160 

There let the pealing organ blow 
To the full-voiced quire below 
In service high and anthems clear 
As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
Dissolve me into ecstasies, 165 

And bring all heaven before mine eyes. 

And may at last my weary age 
Find out the peaceful hermitage, 
The hairy gown and mossy cell, 

Where I may sit and rightly spell 170 

Of every star that heaven doth shew, 
And every herb that sips the dew, 
Till old experience do attain 

159. Storied windows. — /. e., windows of stained glass with subjects from 
Scripture history. 



238 PERIOD OF I TA LI A N I NFL UENCE. 

To something like prophetic strain. 

These pleasures, Melancholy, give, 175 

And I with thee will choose to live. 



ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE. 

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, 

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year ! 

My hasting days fly on with full career, 
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. 
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, 

That I to manhood am arrived so near ; 

And inward ripeness doth much less appear, 
That some more timery-happy spirits endu'th. 

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
It shall be still in strictest measure even 

To that same lot, however mean or high, 
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven; 

All is, if I have grace to use it so, 

As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye. 
December, 1631. 



ON HIS BLINDNESS* 

When I consider how my light is spent 

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, 
And that one talent which is death to hide 

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest he returning chide, 
" Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ? " 

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies, " God doth not need 
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best 

* This sonnet was written in 1652, the year in which Milton lost his sight. 
It may be compared with his other personal sonnets: that on his arriving at 
the age of twenty-three (1631), and the sonnet to Cyriac Skinner (1655). 
See "Milton." by Stopford Brooke, p. 70. Other famous allusions to his 
blindness are to be found in the opening lines of " Paradise Lost," bk. 
Hi, and in the blind Samson's lament in " Samson Agonistes," line 66. 



SELECTIONS FROM MILTON. 239 

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
Is kingly : thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
They also serve who only stand and wait." 



ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.* 

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones, 
Forget not : in thy book record their groans 

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 

Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 

To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 

The triple Tyrant ; that from these may grow 
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way, 

Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 

*The invocation with which this sonnet opens has a peculiar sublimity and 
majesty, perhaps unequaled by anything in our literature. We are affected 
as by some massive chorus in an Oratorio of Handel's. The whole sonnet 
has the noble utterance of certain passages in the Old Testament, and we 
are reminded that Milton's genius was nourished on Hebrew as well as on 
classic models. The student should look up the historical event which was 
the occasion of the poem. 



240 



PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 



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242 PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE. 



NOTES AND REFERENCES. 

i. History. — S. R. Gardiner's series of Histories cover this 
period. Masson's " Life and Times of Milton"; Macaulay's 
" History of England." 

2. Literature. — For admirable review of state of literature 
in 1630, see Masson's Life, etc., supra, vol. i. chap, vi.; 
Saintsbury's ''Seventeenth Century Lyrics"; Saintsbury's 
" Elizabethan Literature"; Minto's Eng. Poets. Palgrave's 
" Chrysomela," a selection from lyrical poems of Herrick, is 
suitable for school use. 

3. Milton. — Lives: Garnett's, in Great Writers Series, 
Pattison's, in Eng. Men of Letters Series; Milton, in Johnson's 
" Lives of the Poets "; Masson's " Three Devils, and Other 
Essays," Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's. The essay in same 
volume on the youth of Milton contains interesting compari- 
son between Milton and Shakespeare. Essay on Milton in 
Seeley's " Lectures and Essays "; Stopford Brooke's " Milton " 
in Student's Library Series; Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 



PART III. 



THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

(1660 to cir. 1750.) 



THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

1660 to cir. 1750. 



The England of the Restoration. 

The Restoration is one of the great landmarks in the 
history of England. It means more than a change in 
government; it means the beginning of a changesatthe 
new England, in life, in thought, and in Restoration, 
literature. On every side we find outward signs of the 
nation's different mood. The theatres were reopened, 
and frivolous crowds applauded a new kind of drama, 
light, witty, and immoral. The Maypoles were set up 
again, bear baiting revived, the Puritan Sabbath disre- 
garded. The king had come to enjoy his own again, 
and thousands who had grown restive under Puritanic 
restraints flung aside all decency to recklessly enjoy it 
with him. Those whom the Puritan had overthrown 
were again uppermost, and they knew no moderation in 
the hour of their triumph. The cause and faith of Crom- 
well and of Milton were loaded with insult and contempt, 
and the snuffling Puritan was baited and ridiculed, as in 
the clever but vulgar doggerel of Butler's Hudibras. 
Had Cromwell lived, or had England remained a Puritan 
Commonwealth, the spirit which produced Withers, Mil- 
ton, and Bunyan, might have continued to enrich the 
literature; but with the return of Charles II. we pass 
abruptly into a new literary period expressive of the na- 
tion's altered mood. 

245 



246 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

During the two centuries preceding the Restoration, 
the genius of England had been inspired and directed by 

The French Italy, but about the time of that event 
influence. English writers began to turn for guidance 

to the brilliant and polished literature of France. This 
seems to have been due to a combination of causes. 
Throughout the whole of Europe the literary influence 
of Italy had sensibly declined, and at this time was being 
partially replaced by that of France. Politically, France 
had gained great ascendancy through the ability of her 
famous statesmen, Richelieu and Mazarin ; and Louis 
XIV. (1643-1715), the most splendid living embodiment 
of despotic kingship, had gathered about his court a 
brilliant group of writers. Theological eloquence was 
represented by Bossuet and Fenelon, meditative prose by 
Pascal, tragedy by Corneille and Racine, and comedy by 
Moliere, with the single exception of Shakespeare, the 
greatest dramatist of the modern world. It was but 
natural that England, in common with other nations, 
should respond to the example of this rising literature ; 
but her readiness to learn from France seems to have 
been heightened by other causes. Charles II. had 
brought with him from his exile on the Continent a fond- 
ness for things French, and, in particular, a liking for the 
French style of tragedy. France was powerful in the 
very heart of Charles's court, and his reign shows us the 
shameful spectacle of an English king seeking to under- 
mine English liberty by the aid of a French king's gold. 

Doubtless the French tastes of the king were not with- 
out their effect on literature ; but a still more important 
reason for the English following of French 

The French . ° °- 

Attention to Lit- models remains to be noticed. One great 

erary Form. . ; it. 7 1 . 

characteristic of the r rench literature of this 
period was the importance it attached to literary form, 
that is, to the finish, elegance, and correctness with 



THE ENGLAND OF THE RESTORA TION. 247 

which the thought was expressed. Recent efforts had 
been made to improve and purify the language, and from 
this task the French scholars turned theirattention to the 
rules of literary composition. Boileau became the lit- 
erary lawgiver of the day by his Art of Poetry (1674), in 
which he urged writers to avoid the brilliant extrava- 
gancies of the Italians, and strive to write with exactness 
and " good sense." Now this doctrine met with especial 
favor, because it exactly suited the general trend and 
tendency of the times. Throughout Europe the creative 
impulse of the Renaissance was dying. 

No longer sustained by that overmastering desire to 
create, which, by its very truth and intensity, leads 
genius to an artistic expression, men came to rely more 
on such external guidance as could be had from the max- 
ims of composition. England shared in this prevailing 
tendency, and naturally t;ook for her pattern the great 
French exponents of the congenial doctrine. 

Edmund Waller (1605-1687) was one of the earliest of 
these followers of the French, and was for some time 
looked up to as the great refiner of language and versi- 
fication ; but the real head of The Critical School, as this 
group of writers is called, was John Dry den (1631-1700), 
a man of logical and masculine intellect, and 

fe ' John Dryden. 

of finished literary skill. Dryden rises above 
the smaller men of his day by the weight of sheer intel- 
lectual force. From the Restoration to the close of the 
century he dominated English letters, " the greatest man 
of a little age." He represents the new critical spirit 
and the desire for moderation and correctness of literary 
form. " Nothing," he declared, " is truly sublime that 
is not just and proper " ; and he>brought to his work a 
cold and critical intellect, and the most exacting and 
conscientious care. In his adaptation of an English 
translation of Boileau's Art of Poetry, he announces his 



248 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

own principles of composition — principles which distin- 
guish the writers of his school : 

" Gently make haste, of labour not afraid : 
A hundred times consider what you've said ; 
Polish, repolish, every colour lay, 
And sometimes add, but oftener take away." * 

Dryden's careful study of literature as an art is further 
shown by his prose criticisms. It was his custom to pref- 
Dryden as ace ^ s pl a y s aR d poems with a discussion, 
critic. explaining or defending the methods upon 

which the work had been composed ; and his Essay on 
Dramatic Poetry (1668), in which he advocates the use 
of rhyme in serious plays, holds an assured place in the 
history of English criticism. 

Immense intellectual force, and an ability to argue in 
verse, two of the most obvious elements of Dryden's 
Drydenas genius, lift his Satires and didactic poems 
Satmst. \x\X.o a f oremos t place in the literature. His 

Absalom and .Achitophel (168 1), the greatest political 
satire of the language, was written in the interests of 
the Court party, and contains a masterly attack upon the 
Earl of Shaftesbury, who was then on trial for high trea- 
son. The portrayal of Shaftesbury, under the name of 
Achitophel, is justly famous, and is a good illustration of 
Dryden's peculiar power : 

" Of these the false Achitophel was first ; 
A name to all succeeding ages curst : 
For close designs, and crooked counsels fit ; 
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit ; 
Restless, unfixed in principles and place ; 
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace : 
A fiery soul, which, working out its way, 
Fretted the pigmy-body to decay, 
And o'er informed the tenement of clay. 

* " The Art of Poetry," canto 1, 1. 171. 



THE ENGLAND OF THE RESTORATION. 249 

A daring pilot in extremity ; 

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high 

He sought the storms ; but for a calm unfit, 

Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 

And thin partitions do their bounds divide ; 

Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest, 

Refuse his age the needful hours of rest ? 

Punish a body which he could not please ; 

Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ? 

And all to leave what with his toil he won, 

To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son." * 

This masterpiece, which established its author's fame 
as a satirist, was followed by The Medal (1682), a second 
attack on Shaftesbury, and by Mac Flecknoe (1682). In 
the latter, Shadwell, an otherwise obscure writer of the 
political faction opposite to that of Dryden, is immorta- 
lized by the stinging lash of the poet's ridicule. Flecknoe, 
who is about to abdicate from the throne of Dulness in 
favor of Shadwell, is made to declare : 

"Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he, 
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. 
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, 
But Shadwell never deviates into sense. 
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, 
Strike through, and make a lucid interval ; 
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, 
His rising fogs prevail upon the day."t 

The Re/igio Laid (1682), and The Hind and the Panther 
(1687), are the great examples of Dryden's power of reason- 
ing in verse. The first is a defense of the 
Church of England, the second, written Power of Rea- 

1 • t-» s^ soning in Verse. 

after the accession of the Roman Catholic 

James, and after Dryden's change of faith, is an elaborate 

argument in behalf of the Church of Rome. 

* " Absalom and Achitophel,"pt. 1, 1. 150. f" Mac Flecknoe,"!. 17. 



250 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

In lyric poetry Dryden is known by his majestic odes 
on St. Cecilia s Day and Alexander s Feast, and by the 
beautiful Memorial Ode on Mistress Anne 
Killegrew* in which he speaks with touch- 
ing humility of his own shortcomings. 

Dryden is emphatically a representative English poet. 
By his life, character, and the spirit of his work, he be- 

Drydenand l° n g" s to the changed England which had 
his Time. risen out of the overthrow of Puritanism, and 

he embodies with unmistakable vigor and distinctness 
many of those marked features which were to character- 
ize the nation and its literature for years to come. Out- 
side the immediate circle of literature there are many in- 
dications of this change. The more coldly speculative 
and intellectual temper of the time is shown in the 
growth of a scientific spirit, shared even by the flippant 
king. The foundation of the Royal Society, in 1662, is 
one of the outcomes of this new science, while among 
the men busy in extending the knowledge of the phys- 
ical world, towers the great figure of Sir Isaac Newton 
(1642-1727). It was an age of unimpassioned logic, of 
intellectual curiosity ; its keen-edged intelligence occupied 
itself with theories of government and with the specula- 
tions of philosophy; its frigid good sense turned to biog- 
raphy and memoirs, to history, criticism, and letters. 
Thus, as we should expect, it was emphatically an age of 
prose. The relations of Dryden to such a time are close 
and obvious, and he plainly defines for us its mental tem- 
per. He had clearness, mental grasp, great ease and 
finish of style, and a hard-headed and masculine power; 
but we miss in him the glowing imagination of the 
Elizabethans, their mounting ardor of emotion, their love 
of nature and of beauty, their moods of exquisite tender- 
ness. With Dryden, poetry became the coadjutor of poli- 
* " This beautiful Ode is given in Ward's " English Poets." 



SELECTION FROM DR YDEN. 25 1 

tics, and the handmaid of religious controversy. We 
leave behind us the passion of Lear, or the rapt visions 
of Paradise Lost, to pass into a new world of fashion 
and wit, of logic and vituperation. 



SELECTION FROM DRYDEN. 

A SONG 
For St. Cecilia's Day, 1687. 

I. 

From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
This universal frame began : 
When nature underneath a heap 

Of jarring atoms lay, 
And could not heave her head, 
The tuneful voice was heard from high, 

Arise, ye more than dead. 
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, 
In order to their stations leap, 
And Music's power obey. 
From harmony, from heavenly harmony 

This universal frame began : 
From harmony to harmony 

Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in Man. 



II. 

What passion cannot Music raise and quell ? 
When Jubal struck the chorded shell, 

His listening brethren stood around, 
And, wondering, on their faces fell 
To worship that celestial sound. 
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell 
Within the hollow of that shell, 
That spoke so sweetly and so well. 
What passion cannot Music raise and quell ? 



2 5 2 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

III. 
The trumpet's loud clangor 

Excites us to arms, 
With shrill notes of anger, 
And mortal alarms. 
The double double double beat 
Of the thundering drum 
Cries, hark ! the foes come ; 
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat. 

IV. 

The soft complaining flute 
In dying notes discovers 
The woes of hopeless lovers, 
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. 

v. 

Sharp violins proclaim 
Their jealous pangs, and desperation, 
Fury, frantic indignation, 
Depth of pains, and height of passion, 

For the fair, disdainful dame. 

VI. 

But oh ! what art can teach, 
What human voice can reach, 
The sacred organ's praise? 
Notes inspiring holy love, 
Notes that wing their heavenly ways 
To mend the choirs above. 

VII. 

Orpheus could lead the savage race ; 
And trees uprooted left their place, 

Sequacious of the lyre : 
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher : 
When to her organ vocal breath was given, 
An angel heard, and straight appear'd 

Mistaking earth for heaven. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESS A VS. 253 

Grand Chorus, 

As from the power of sacred lays 

The spheres began to move, 
And sung the great Creator's praise 

To all the bless'd above ; 
So when the last and dreadful hour 
This crumbling pageant shall devour, 
The trumpet shall be heard on high, 
The dead shall live, the living die, 
And Music shall untune the sky. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS. 

With new popular needs and a wider reading public, 
came important changes in literature and in the position 
of the author. Before this, authorship, as 

... ... . . , r Changed 

a recognized calling-, did not exist outside of Position of the 

& b * Author. 

the writers for the stage ; but from about 
the reign of Queen Anne (1702-17 14) we note the signs of 
change. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. the 
successful playwright reached a large public, but for the 
writer of books the circle of readers was comparatively 
small. Men did not attempt to make a living by author- 
ship alone, and writing was accordingly an occasional 
occupation, an amusement, or a mere graceful accom- 
plishment. Hooker was a clergyman ; Bacon unhappily 
gave to knowledge only such time as he could spare 
from law and politics ; Raleigh and Sidney represent 
the large class of courtiers and gentlemen who wrote in 
the elegant leisure of brilliant and active lives, while 
Milton in his prose, with Prynne and Collier, are ex- 
amples of those who used books as a means of contro- 
versy. That large reading public which in our own day 
enables the author to live solely by his pen did not then 
exist, and before the Civil War books were commonly 



254 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE, 

published through some powerful patron. But as 
wealth and leisure increased, the general intelligence 
widened, and the author gradually gained the support of 
a large number of readers. Publishing became more 
profitable, and in the reign of Charles II, the number of 
publishing houses greatly increased. In Queen Anne's 
reign a close connection existed between literature and 
politics, and many authors were encouraged by the gift 
of government positions.* 

The author was still dependent on a powerful patron, 
but he was gradually struggling towards direct reliance 
on the public support. During Anne's reign the greater 
towns, and especially London, became more and more 
centres of social and intellectual activity. Coffeehouses 
were established in great numbers, and there the leading 
men in politics, literature, or fashion, habitually met to 
smoke and discuss the latest sensations over the novel 
luxury of coffee. Such friction made men's minds more 
alert, witty, and alive to the newest thing. Before 171 5 
there were nearly tw r o thousand of these coffeehouses in 
London alone, representing an immense variety of social 
classes and political opinions. f With the spread of in- 
telligence and the life of the club and coffeehouse the 

* " The splendid efflorescence of genius under Queen Anne was in a very 
great degree due to ministerial encouragement, which smoothed the path of 
many whose names and writings are familiar in countless households where 
the statesmen of that day are almost forgotten. Among those who obtained 
assistance from the government, either in the form of pensions, appoint- 
ments, or professional promotion, were Newton and Locke, Addison, Swift, 
Steele, Prior, Gay, Row r e, Congreve, Tickell, Parnell, and Phillips, w^hile a 
secret pension was offered to Pope, who was legally disqualified by his re- 
ligion from receiving government favours." — " Eng. in the 18th Cent," by 
W. E. H. Lecky, vol. vi. p. 462. 

•(•Sidney's "Eng. in the 18th Cent.," vol. i. p. 186. According to Hal- 
ton, " New View of London," vol. i. p. 30, there were nearly three thou- 
sand coffeehouses in England in 1708. See Lecky 's " Eng. in the 18th 
Cent.," vol. i. p. 616. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESS A VS. * 255 

rise of periodical literature is directly connected. More- 
over, the liberty of the press, for which Milton strove, 
had been established since 1682, so that RiseofPeriod- 
many things favored the rise of journalism. lcal Llterature - 
The first daily newspaper, the Daily Conrant, was started 
in 1702, and The Tatler (1709), part newspaper and part 
magazine, began a distinctly new order of periodical 
literature.* The Tatler came out on Tuesdays, Thurs- 
days, and Saturdays ; it was sold for a penny, and in ad- 
dition to theatre notices, advertisements, and current 
news, it contained an essay which often treated lightly 
and good-humoredly of the day. Such a paper was pre- 
cisely what the new conditions of town life required. 
(The floating talk of the clubs and coffeehouses was 
caught by the essayist and compressed into a brief, witty, 
and graceful literary form. In the place of ponderous 
sentences, moving heavily under their many-syllabled 
words and their cumbrous weight of learning, we have a 
new prose, deft, quick, sparkling, and neither too serious 
nor too profound. It is as though the age had aban- 
doned the massive broadsword of an earlier time, to 
play at thrust and parry with the foils. The creators 
of this new periodical literature are Sir Richard Steele 
and his friend Joseph Addison. 

Richard Steele (1672- 1729) was a warm-hearted, lov- 
able, and impulsive Irishman. Left fatherless before he 
was six years old, he gained admission 
to the Charterhouse school in London, 
through the influence of his uncle. Here he met 
Addison, his junior by two months, but greatly his 
senior in discretion ; and the two schoolboys began a 
beautiful and almost lifelong friendship. Thackeray 
writes of this period of Steele's life": " I am afraid no good 

* A good account of this will be found in Courthope's " Life of Addison," 
chap, i., in Eng. Men of Letters Series. 



256 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

report could be given by his masters and ushers of that 
thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft-hearted little Irish 
Thackeray on b°y« He was very idle. He was whipped 
deservedly a great number of times. 
Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other 
boys to do his lessons for him, and only took just as much 
trouble as should enable him to scuffle through his exer- 
cises, and by good fortune escape the flogging block. 
One hundred and fifty years after, I* have myself in- 
spected, but only as an amateur, that instrument of 
righteous torture still existing, and in occasional use, in 
a secluded private apartment of the old Charterhouse 
school ; and have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if 
not the ancient and interesting machine itself, at which 
poor Dick Steele submitted himself to the tormentors. 

" Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this 
boy went invariably into debt with the tartwoman ; ran 
out of bounds, and entered into pecuniary, or rather 
promissory, engagements with the neighboring lollipop 
venders and piemen — exhibited an early fondness for 
drinking mum and sack, and borrowed from all his com- 
rades who had money to lend. I have no sort of author- 
ity for the statements here made of Steele's early life ; 
but if the child is father of the man, the father of young 
Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without taking a de- 
gree, and entered into the Life Guards — the father of 
Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his company 
through the patronage of my Lord Cutts — the father of 
Mr. Steele, the Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of 
the Gazette, the Tatler, and Spectator, the expelled 
member of Parliament, and the author of the Tender 
Husband and the Conscious Lovers, if man and boy 
resembled each other, Dick Steele, the schoolboy, must 
have been one of the most generous, good-for-nothing, 
amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSA YS. 257 

tupto, I beat, tuptomai, I am whipped, in any school in 
Great Britain. 

"Almost every gentleman who does me the honor to 
hear me will remember that the very greatest character 
which he has seen in the course of his life, and the person 
to whom he has looked up with the greatest wonder and 
reverence, was the head boy at his school. ... I 
have seen great men in my time, but never such a great 
one as that head boy of my childhood ; we all thought 
he must be Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on 
meeting him in after life to find he was no more than six 
feet high. 

11 Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted 
such an admiration in the years of his childhood, and re- 
tained it faithfully through his life. Through the school, 
and through the world, whithersoever his strange fortune 
led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, Joseph 
Addison was always his head boy. Addison wrote his 
exercises. Addison did his best themes. He ran on 
Addison's messages ; fagged for him and blacked his 
shoes ; to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleas- 
ure ; and he took a sermon or a caning from his monitor 
with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, and 
affection." * 

Leaving school, Steele went to Oxford, then entered 
the army, and ultimately rose to the rank of captain. 
He wrote a religious work, The Christian Hero, by which 
he complained he gained a reputation for piety which he 
found it difficult to live up to. To counteract this, and 
to " enliven his character," he wrote a com- 

. „ . . Steele founds 

edy called The Funeral (i70i). After pro- "The Tatier," 

v ' ' l 1709. 

ducing several other plays, Steele, drifted 

into journalism, and after writing for a paper called 

The Gazette, founded The Tatier. After a few weeks 

* Thackeray's "English Humorists," p. 200. 



258 THE FRENCH INFL UENCE. 

Addison became a contributor, but even before this the 
success of the paper was assured. The Tatler was discon- 
tinued in 171 1 to make way for The Spectator, a joint enter- 
prise of Addison and Steele. This ran until 1713, when 
it was succeeded by The Guardian, the last periodical 
for which the friends worked together. Steele was extrav- 
agant, good-natured, and fond of fine clothes. When he 
had money he spent it like a prince, and so did not have it 
long. He " outlived his wife, his income, his health, 
almost everything but his kind heart. That ceased to 
trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost 
forgotten by his contemporaries, in Wales, where he had 
the remnant of a property." * 

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) was more reserved, shy, 
and dignified than his rollicking friend Dick Steele. He 
was the son of a clergyman, and he had 
himself so much of the clerical gravity 
that a contemporary called him " a parson in a tyewig." 
Like Steele he went to Oxford after leaving the Charter- 
house school, but unlike Steele won a scholarship by some 
Latin verses. Like most of the authors of the time Ad- 
dison was obliged to depend on patronage for a living. 
He was granted a pension in return for a laudatory poem 
on the Peace of Ryswick (1697). This he lost on the 
king's death (William III., 1702), and in the following 
year he returned to England from a Continental tour, 
with no certain prospects. Poetry came a second time 
to his aid. He made a great hit by a poem called 
The Campaign, in which he celebrated the Duke of Marl- 
borough's great victory at Blenheim, and was appointed 
to a government position. In 171 3 he brought out his 
tragedy of Cato, which gave him a prodigious reputa- 
tion, but, as we know, he had before this begun a work 
of even more permanent importance in his contributions 

* Thackeray's " English Humorists," p. 210. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUR Y ESS A YS.' 259 

to the Tatler and Spectator. As an essayist, Addison 
possessed a finer art than that of Steele, yet it was 
Steele who first suggested what Addison brought to per- 
fection. This was the case with the famous character of 
Sir Roger de Coverley, the typical country gentleman of 
the time. Both Steele and Addison wrote 

.. J .... . . Addison and 

as moralists, and in their work one sees that Steele social 

... r Reformers. 

the reaction against the excesses of the 
Restoration had already begun. Their method as reform- 
ers is in keeping with the spirit of the time. They did not 
assail vice and folly with indignant eloquence, but, with 
delicate tact and unvarying good humor, they gently 
made them ridiculous. Addison regretted the emptiness 
and frivolity of the fashionable women, and set himself 
to bring a new interest into their lives. " There are 
none," he says, " to whom this paper will be more useful 
than to the female world,"* and his direct appeal to 
the women readers is memorable in the history of the 
literature. Such papers as " The Fine Lady's Journal," 
" The Exercise of the Fan," " The Dissection of a Beau's 
Head," and of a " Coquette's Heart," with their minute 
observation and kindly satire of manners, are highly repre- 
sentative. In " Ned Softly," Addison laughs at the liter- 
ary doctrines of the day, showing us against a background 
of club life a " very pretty poet," who studies the approved 
maxims of poetry before sitting down to write, and who 
spends a whole hour in adapting the turn of the words in 
two lines. 

Finally, we see in these early eighteenth century essays 
the forerunners of a new art. The faithful description 
of life and manners, the feeling for character 

.... . . , , . The Essay the 

and incident, show that the essays have only Precursor of the 

11 ... " , Novel. 

to be thrown into the form of a continued 

narrative to give us the modern novel. Before the eigh- 

* " Spectator," No 10, Read this entire paper. 



260 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

teenth century was half over, Samuel Richardson and 
Joseph Fielding had continued in the novel that paint- 
ing of contemporary life which the essayist had begun. 

The character and work of Addison cannot be better 
summed up than in the famous tribute of Macaulay, who 

Macauiay on calls him " the unsullied statesman ; the ac- 
complished scholar, the great satirist who 
alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it ; who, 
without inflicting a wound, affected a great social reform, 
and who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and pain- 
ful separation, during which wit had been led astray by 
profligacy and virtue by fanaticism." * 

SELECTIONS FROM ADDISON. 

NED SOFTLY THE POET. 

Idem inficeto est inficetior rure, 

Simul poemata attigit ; neque idem unquam 

JEqne est beatus, ac poema quum scribit : 

Tarn guadet in se, tamque se ipse miratur. 

Nimirum idem omnes fallimur ; neque est quisquam 

Quern non in aliqua re videre Suffenum 

Possis — — Catul. 

I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company 
generally make their appearance, with a design to read over all the 
newspapers ; but upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned 
Softly, who saw me from a corner in the other end of the room, where 
1 found he had been writing something. " Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, 
" I observe by a late paper of yours, that you and I are just of a humour ; 
for you must know, of all impertinences there is nothing which I so 
much hate as news. I never read a gazette in my life; and never 
trouble my head about our armies, whether they win or lose ; or in 
what part of the world they lie encamped." Without giving me time 
to reply, he drew a paper of verses out of his pocket, telling me that 
he had something which would entertain me more agreeably; and 
that he would desire my judgment upon every line, for that we 
had time enough before us until the company came in. 

Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines. 
* Macaulay, Essay on " Life and Writings of Addison." 



SELECTIONS FROM ADDISON. 261 

Waller is his favorite; and as that admirable writer has the best and 
worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly has 
got all the bad ones without book ; which he repeats upon occasion, 
to shew his reading and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a 
a true English reader, incapable of relishing the great and masterly 
strokes of this art ; but wonderfully pleased with the little Gothic orna- 
ments of epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which 
are so frequent in the most admired of our English poets, and prac- 
tised by those who want genius and strength to represent, after the 
manner of the ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection. 
Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was 
resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure, and to divert myself as well 
as I could with so very odd a fellow. " You must understand," says 
Ned, " that the sonnet I am going to read to you was written upon a 
lady who showed me some verses of her own making, and is, perhaps, 
the best poet of our age. But you shall hear it." Upon which he 
began to read as follows : 

TO MIRA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS. 



When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine, 

And tune your soft melodious notes, 
You seem a sister of the Nine, 

Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 

II. 
I fancy, when your song you sing 

(Your song you sing with so much art), 
Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing ; 

For ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 

" Why," says I, " this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very lump- of 
salt ; every verse hath something in it that piques ; and then the dart 
in the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an epigram 
(for so I think your critics call it) as ever entered into the thought of 
a poet." " Dear Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, shaking me by the hand, 
"everybody knows you to be a judge of these things ; and to tell you 
truly, I read over Roscommon's translation of Horace's Art of 
Poetry three several times, before I sat* down to write the sonnet 
which I have shewn you. But you shall hear it again, and pray ob- 
serve every line of it, for not one of them shall pass without your 
approbation. 



262 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

" When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine. 

" This is," says he, " when you have your garland on ; when you are 
writing verses." To which I replied, " I know your meaning : a 
metaphor ! " — " The same," said he, and went on : 

" And tune your soft melodious notes. 

" Pray observe the gliding of that verse ; there is scarce a con- 
sonant in it : I took good care to make it run upon liquids. Give 
me your opinion of it." " Truly," said I, " I think it as good as the 
former." " I am very glad L o hear you say so," says he ; " but mind 
the next : 

" You seem a sister of the Nine. 

" That is," says he, " you seem a sister of the Muses ; for, if you 
look into ancient authors, you will find it was their opinion, that there 
were nine of them." " I remember it very well," said I, " but pray 
proceed." 

" Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 

" Phoebus," says he, '* was the god of poetry. These little instances, 
Mr. Bickerstaff, shew a gentleman's reading. Then to take off from 
the air of learning which Phcebus and the Muses have given to this 
first stanza, you may observe how it falls, all of a sudden, into the 
familiar — ' in petticoats ! ' 

" Or Phcebus' self in petticoats." 

" Let us now," says I, "enter upon the second stanza* I find the 
first line is still a continuation of the metaphor." 

' ' I fancy, when your song you sing. 

" It is very right," says he ; " but pray observe the turn of words in 
those two lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and have 
still a doubt upon me whether, in the second line, it should be — ' Your 
song you sing,' or, « You sing your song.' You shall hear them 
both : 

" I fancy when your song you sing 
(Your song you sing with so much art) ; 
or, 

I fancy when your song you sing 
(You sing your song with so much art)." 

" Truly," said I, " the turn is so natural either way that you have 
made me almost giddy with it." " Dear sir," said he, grasping me 



SELECTIONS FROM ADDISON. 263 

by the hand, " you have a great deal of patience; but pray what do 
you think of the next verse ? 

"Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing." 

" Think ! " says I ; " I think you have made Cupid look like a little 
goose." "That was my meaning," says he : " I think the ridicule is 
well enough hit off. But we come now to the last, which sums up 
the whole matter. 

" For ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 

Pray how do you like that ah ! Doth it not make a pretty figure 
in that place ? Ah ! — it looks as if I felt the dart, and cried out at 
being pricked with it. 

" For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 

" My friend Dick Easy," continued he, " assured me he would 
rather have written that ah ! than to have been the author of the 
' ^Eneid.' He indeed objected that I made Mira's pen like a quill in 

one of the lines, and like a dart in the other. But as to that '' 

" Oh ! as to that," says I, " it is but supposing Cupid to be like a 
porcupine, and his quills and darts will be the same thing." 

He was going to embrace me for the hint ; but half a dozen critics 
coming into the room, whose faces he did not like, he conveyed the 
sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the ear, he would show 
it me again as soon as his man had written it over fair. 

April 25, 1710. 

SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY ; SIR ROGER AT CHURCH. 

I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think if 
keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would 
be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing 
and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would 
soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians, were there 
not such frequent returns of a stated time in which the whole village 
meet together with their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to 
converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties 
explained to them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme 
Being. Sunday clears away the rust of fhe whole week, not only as 
it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both 
the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting 
all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the 



264 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

village. A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the church- 
yard, as a citizen does upon the 'Change, the whole parish politics 
being generally discussed in that place either after sermon or before 
the bell rings. 

My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the 
inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing ; he has 
likewise given a handsome pulpit cloth, and railed in the communion 
table at his own expense. He has often told me, that at his coming to 
his estate he found his parishioners very irregular ; and that in order 
to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of 
them a hassock and a common-prayer book : and at the same time 
employed an itinerant singing master, who goes about the country 
for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms ; 
upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo 
most of the country churches that I have ever heard. 

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in 
very good order, and will suffer no one to sleep in it besides himself; 
for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, 
upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he 
sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself or sends his 
servants to them. Several other of the old knight's particularities 
break out upon these occasions ; sometimes he will be lengthening 
out a verse in the* singing-psalms half a minute after the rest of the 
congregation have done with it ; sometimes, when he is pleased with 
the matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times 
to the same prayer ; and sometimes stands up when everybody else 
is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his 
tenants are missing. 

I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the 
midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what 
he was about, and not disturb the congregation. This John Mat- 
thews it seems is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that 
time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This authority of the 
knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him 
in all circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, 
who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behavior ; 
besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his character 
makes his friends observe these little singularities as foils that rather 
set off than blemish his good qualities. 

As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody presumes to stir till Sir 
Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks down from his 



SELECTIONS FROM ADDISON. 265 

seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand 
bowing to him on each side ; and every now and then inquires how 
such an one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not 
see at church ; which is understood as a secret reprimand to the per- 
son that is absent. 

The chaplain has often told me, that upon a catechizing day, when 
Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has or- 
dered a Bible to be given him next day for his encouragement ; and 
sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon for his mother. Sir 
Roger has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place ; and 
that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect 
in the church service, has promised, upon the death of the present in- 
cumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit. 

The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain, and 
their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable, be- 
cause the very next village is famous for the differences and conten- 
tions that rise between the parson and the 'squire, who live in a per- 
petual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the 'squire, 
and the 'squire to be revenged on the parson never comes to church. 
The 'squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers ; 
while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his 
order, and insinuates to them in almost every sermon that he is a 
better man than his patron. In short matters are come to such an 
extremity that the 'squire has not said his prayers either in public or 
private this half year; and that the parson threatens him, if he 
does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole 
congregation. 

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very 
fatal to the ordinary people; who are so used to be dazzled with 
riches, that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a 
man of an estate, as of a man of learning : and are very hardly 
brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is 
preached to them, when they know there are several men of five 
hundred a year who do not believe it. 

THE FINE LADY'S JOURNAL. 

Modo vir, modo foemina.— Virg . 

The journal with which I presented my reader on Tuesday last, has 
brought me in several letters, with accounts of many private lives cast 
into that form. I have " The Rake's Journal," " The Sot's Journal," 



266 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

and among several others a very curious piece, entitled " The Journal 
of a Mohock." By these instances I find that the intention of my last 
Tuesday's paper has been mistaken by many of my readers. I did 
not design so much to expose vice as idleness, and aimed at those 
persons who pass away their time rather in trifles and impertinence, 
than in crimes and immoralities. Offences of this latter kind are not 
to be dallied with, or treated in so ludicrous a manner. In short, my 
journal only holds up folly to the light, and shews the disagreeable- 
ness of such actions as are indifferent in themselves, and blamable 
only as they proceed from creatures endowed with reason. 

My following correspondent, who calls herself Clarinda, is such a 
journalist as I require ; she seems by her letter to be placed in a 
modish state of indifference between vice and virtue, and to be sus- 
ceptible of either, were there proper pains taken with her. Had her 
journal been filled with gallantries, or such occurrences as had shown 
her wholly divested of her natural innocence, notwithstanding it 
might have been more pleasing to the generality of readers, I should 
not have published it ; but as it is only the picture of a life filled with 
a fashionable kind of gaiety and laziness, I shall set down five days of 
it, as I have received it from the hand of my fair correspondent. 

Dear Mr. Spectator: 

You having set ytmr readers an exercise in one of your last week's papers, 
I have performed mine according to your orders, and herewith send it you 
inclosed. You must know, Mr. Spectator, that I am a maiden lady of a good 
fortune, who have had several matches offered me for these ten years last 
past, and have at present warm applications made to me by a very pretty 
fellow. As I am at my own disposal, I come up to town every winter, and 
pass my time in it after the manner you will find in the following journal, 
which I began to write upon the very day after your Spectator upon that 
subject. 

Tuesday night. — Could not go to sleep till one in the morning for think- 
ing of my journal. 

Wednesday. — From eight till ten. Drank two dishes of chocolate in bed, 
and fell asleep after them. 

From ten to eleven. Eat a slice of bread and butter, drank a dish of 
bohea, read the Spectator. 

From eleven to one. At my toilette, tried a new head. Gave orders for 
Veny to be combed and washed. Mem. I look best in blue. 

From one till half an hour after two. Drove to the Change. Cheapened 
a couple of fans. 

Till four. At dinner. Mem. Mr. Froth passed by in his new liveries. 



SELECTIONS FROM ADDISON 267 

From four to six. Dressed, paid a visit to old Lady Blithe and her 
sister, having before heard they were gone out of town that day. 

From six to eleven. At Basset. Mem. Never set again upon the ace of 
diamonds. 

Thursday. — From eleven at night to eight in the morning. Dreamed 
that I punted to Mr. Froth. 

From eight to ten. Chocolate. Read two acts in Aurengzebe a-bed. 

From ten to eleven. Tea-table. Read the play-bills. Received a letter 
from Mr. Froth. Mem. Locked it up in my strong box. 

Rest of :the morning. Fontange, the tire-woman, her account of my 
Lady Blithe's wash. Broke a tooth in my little tortoise-shell comb. Sent 
Frank to know how my Lady Hectic rested after her monkey's leaping out 
at window. Looked pale. Fontange tells me my glass is not true. 
Dressed by three. 

From three to four. Dinner cold before I sat down. 

From four to eleven. Saw company. Mr. Froth's opinion of Milton. 
His account of the Mohocks. His fancy for a pin-cushion. Picture in the 
lid of his snuff-box. Old Lady Faddle promises me her woman to cut my 
hair. Lost five guineas at crimp. 

Twelve o'clock at night. Went to bed. 

Friday. — Eight in the morning. A-bed. Read over all Mr. Froth's 
letters. 

Ten o'clock. Stayed within all day, not at home. 

From ten to twelve. In conference with my mantua-maker. Sorted a 
suit of ribbons. Broke my blue china cup. 

From twelve to one. Shut myself up in my chamber. Practised Lady 
Betty Modely's skuttle. 

One in the afternoon. Called for my flowered handkerchief. Worked 
half a violet leaf in it. Eyes ached, and head out of order. Threw by my 
work, and read over the remaining part of Aurengzebe. 

From three to four. Dined. 

From four to twelve. Changed my mind, dressed, went abroad, and 
played at crimp till midnight. Found Mrs. Spitely at home. Conversation: 
Mrs. Brilliant's necklace false stones. Old Lady Loveday going to be 
married to a young fellow that is not worth a groat. Miss Prue gone into 
the country. Tom Townley has red hair. Mem. Mrs. Spitely whispered in 
my ear that she had something to tell me about Mr. Froth ; I am sure it is not 
true. 

Between twelve and one. Dreamed that Mr. Froth lay at my feet, and 
called me Indamora. * 

Saturday. — Rose at eight o'clock in the morning. Sat down to my 
toilette. 

From eight to nine. Shifted a patch for half an hour before I could de- 
termine it. Fixed it above my left eyebrow. 



268 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

From nine to twelve. Drank my tea and dressed. 

From twelve to two. At chapel. A great deal of good company. 
Mem. The third air in the new opera. Lady Blithe dressed fright- 
fully. 

From three to four. Dined. Miss Kitty called upon me to go to the 
opera before I was risen from table. 

From dinner to six. Drank tea. Turned off a footman for being rude 
to Veny. 

Six o'clock. Went to the opera. I did not see Mr. Froth till the be- 
ginning of the second act. Mr. Froth talked to a gentleman in a black wig. 
Bowed to a lady in the front box. Mr. Froth and his friend clapped 
Nicolini in the third act. Mr. Froth cried out Aucora. Mr. Froth led me 
to my chair. I think he squeezed my hand. 

Eleven at night. Went to bed. Melancholy dreams. Methought 
Nicolini said he was Mr. Froth. 

Sunday. — Indisposed. 

Monday. — Eight o'clock. Waked by Miss Kitty. Aurengzebe lay 
upon the chair by me. Kitty repeated without book the eight best lines in the 
play. Went in bur mobs to the dumb man according to appointment. Told 
me that my lover's name began with a G. Mem. The conjurer was within 
a letter of Mr. Froth's name, etc. 

Upon looking back into this my journal, I find that I am at a loss to know 
whether I pass my time well or ill ; and indeed never thought of consider- 
ing how I did it before I perused your speculation upon that subject. I 
scarce find a single action in these five days that I can thoroughly approve of, 
except the working upon the violet leaf, which I am resolved to finish the 
first day I am at leisure. As for Mr. Froth and Veny, I did not think they 
took up so much of my time and thoughts as I find they do upon my journal. 
The latter of them I will turn off, if you insist upon it ; and if Mr. Froth does 
not bring matters to a conclusion very suddenly, I will not let my life run 
away in a dream. 

Your humble servant, 

Clarinda. 

To resume one of the morals of my first paper, and to confirm 
Clarinda in her good inclinations, I would have her consider what 
a pretty figure she would make among posterity were the history of 
her whole life published like these five days of it. I shall conclude 
my paper with an epitaph written by an uncertain author on Sir 
Philip Sidney's sister, a lady who seems to have been of a temper 
very much different from that of Clarinda. The last thought of it 
is so very noble, that I dare say my reader will pardon me the quota- 
tion. 



ALEXANDER POPE. 269 

ON THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEMBROKE. 

Underneath this marble hearse 
Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother ; 
Death, ere thou hast kill'd another, 
Fair, and learned, and good as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

March 11, 1712. 

ALEXANDER POPE.— 1688-1744. 

Alexander Pope is the lawful successor to Dryden in 
the line of representative English poets. About this ex- 
traordinary personage centres the literary and social ac- 
tivity of the Augustan Age, with its thin veneer of elegance 
and fashion, and its inherent coarseness and brutality; 
with its spiteful literary rivalries, its stratagems, its rancor, 
and its unmeasured slanders. The sturdy Dryden, robust 
enough to shoulder his way to the front by sheer force, 
had gone, and this fragile, deformed, and acutely nervous 
invalid reigned in his stead. The story of Pope's life is 
a painful one. He was weak and sickly from his infancy, 
and his life was " a long disease." He is said to have had 
a naturally sweet and gentle disposition, but he grew up 
to be petulant and embittered. His father, a rich and 
retired merchant, was a Roman Catholic, and the preju. 
dice against persons of that faith was so strong at this 
time that Pope was prevented from attending the public 
schools. His education was consequently superficial and 
irregular. He had some instruction from a Roman 
Catholic priest, and afterward went to several small 
schools in succession, remaining a short time at each 
and learning but little. At one of these, the Roman 
Catholic seminary at Twyford, he began his career as 
a satirist by writing a lampoon on the master. When 



270 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

Pope was about twelve years old he was taken from school 
to live with his father at Bin field, a straggling village in 
Windsor Forest. Here he read much poetry, but in a 
rambling and desultory fashion. " I followed," he says, 
" everywhere as my fancy led me, and was like a boy 
gathering flowers in the field just as they fell in his 
way."* He also wrote many verses imitating the style 
of one or another of his favorite poets. He made metri- 
cal translations of the classics, and when between thirteen 
and fifteen years of age composed an epic poem of four 
thousand lines. By this early and incessant practice, 
Pope was acquiring that easy mastery of smooth and 
fluent versification which is characteristic of his mature 
work. His first published poem, The Pastorals (1709), 
represents shepherds and shepherdesses in 

The Pastorals. . x x . 

an imaginary golden age, conversing in 
flowing couplets, and with wit and refinement. Even in 
that polite and artificial time, the unnaturalness of this 
did not pass unnoticed, and a writer in The Guardian 
held that the 'true pastoral should give a genuine picture 
of English country life. 

Pope's next publication, The Essay on Criticism (pub- 
lished 171 1), took London by storm. It is a didactic poem 
Essay on crit- in which the established rules of composi- 
icism - tion are restated by Pope in terse, neat, and 

often clever, couplets. Poetry of this order was especi- 
ally in accord with the reigning literary fashions, and in 
The Essay Pope was but following the lead of Boileau 
and of Dryden. Originality was neither possible nor 
desirable in a work which undertook to express the set- 
tled principles of criticism, yet the poem possesses a merit 
eminently characteristic of Pope — it is quotable. All 
through it we find couplets in which an idea, often com- 
monplace enough, is packed into so terse, striking, and 
* Spence's " Anecdotes," p. 193. 



ALEXANDER POPE. 2 7 1 

remarkable a form, that it has become firmly imbedded 
in our ordinary thought and speech. Through his power 
to translate a current thought into an almost proverbial 
form, Pope has probably enriched the language with 
more phrases than any writer save Shakespeare. 

A little learning is a dangerous thing ; 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. 

To err is human, to forgive divine. 

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.* 

Such quotable bits as these are used by thousands 
who are entirely ignorant of their source. 

Pope gave a brilliant proof of the versatility of his 
powers by The Rape of The Lock (17 12), the religious 
poem of The Messiah, and Windsor Forest. Windsor 
In the last poem the woodland about Bin- Forest, 
field is withdrawn from all danger of recognition, in 
accordance with the peculiar taste of the time. Pan, 
Pomona, Flora, and Ceres, and other classic deities are 
domesticated in an English landscape, and Queen Anne 
compared with Diana. Vulgar realities are carefully 
avoided, as when the hunter, instead of taking aim, is 
made to 

Lift the tube and level with his eye.t 

The poem shows great ease and elegance, but what we 
admire in it is the artist's self-conscious and obtrusive 
skill. So elaborate is Pope's art here and elsewhere, 
that we are less occupied with what he says than with his 
practiced dexterity in saying it. Soon after the publi- 
cation of this poem, Pope plunged into the midst of 
the fashionable society of the day. He frequented the 
theatres and club houses, loitered with the gay throngs 
at Bath, and was entertained at the country places of 

* All these quotations will be found in the " Essay on Criticism." 
f "Windsor Forest." 



272 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

the nobility. After living for two years at Chiswick on 
the Thames (1716-1718), Pope leased a villa at Twicken- 
ham, about five miles farther up the river. Here he con- 
Retires to structed what he called his " grotto " and his 
Twickenham. gardener less elegantly styled " the under- 
ground passage," the walls of which " were finished with 
shells interspersed with pieces of looking glass in angular 
form." * He had, too, a temple of shells, and delighted in 
ornamental gardening. Here, indeed, was much of that 
"nature to advantage dressed" in Avhich he believed. 
Here he reigned, a centre of literature and fashion, enter- 
taining among the rest the poet John Gay (1688-1732) 
and the great and terrible Dean Swift (1667- 1745). 
Meanwhile he had worked industriously. His transla- 
tion of The Iliad appeared in installments between 1715— 
1720, and that of the Odyssey was finished in 1725. 

In 1728 Pope began*a new stage of his career by The 

Dnnciad, or epic of dunces, a satire, on the general plan 

of Mac Flecknoe, against certain writers and 

TheDunciad. 

booksellers of the day. In spite of that 
cleverness which Pope never loses, this poem is both 
pitiable and disgusting. Obscure and starving authors 
are dragged from their garrets and their straw to be 
over-whelmed with unsavory abuse, f and while the 
poet employs every device that, malignity can suggest, 
we miss the amazing vigor of Dryden's giant strokes. 

Pope wrote other satires, but the most famous work 

of his later years is The Essay on Man (1732), a didactic 

Essay on p°em largely based on the philosophy of his 

_ Man. friend Lord Bolingbroke. Its purpose, like 

that of Paradise Lost, is " to vindicate the ways of God to 

man," but the subject, instead of being treated imag- 

* See Pope's letters describing the grotto, given in Carruthers' " Life of 
Pope," vol. i. pp. 171-177, Bohn's edition. 

•f-See Thackeray's " English Humorists," p. 267. 



ALEXANDER POPE. 273 

inatively, is cast in a purely didactic and argumentative 
mold. The sneering contempt for humanity, so frequent 
in early eighteenth century England, runs through the 
poem, and the attempt is made to justify or explain the 
ways of Providence by the belittling and rebuking of 
man. Man is but a link in an unknowable chain of be- 
ing, and because he can form no idea of the purpose of 
the whole, he should not presume to condemn the work- 
ing of a part. 

" The proper study for mankind is man," not because 
of man's dignity and greatness, but because he should 
not aspire to grasp higher things or determine his true 
relations to them. Looking at " life's poor play," -he 
finds one " single comfort," 

Tho' man's a fool, yet God is wise. 

The philosophy of the Essay on Man is shallow and 
antiquated, its argument often defective, yet the poem 
remains a living part of the literature by virtue of Pope's 
admirable and distinctive art. No proof of the enduring 
quality of this art could be more irrefutable than that 
the supreme power of saying trite things, aptly, grace- 
fully, and concisely, has successfully kept the Essay on 
Man on the surface, while other didactic poems of the 
time have long since sunk under the weight of prosy mor- 
alizing. 

About Pope's life but little more need be said. Dur- 
ing his later years his feeble frame was shaken by ill- 
ness, and his hours embittered by the fierce retalia- 
tion which the Dunciad naturally pro- 

, , , T ,., .1 . 1 . ... , »■ Later Years. 

voked. He died quietly in his vijla May 
30, 1744, and was buried in the Twickenham church 
near the monument he had erected to his parents. 
It is almost impossible for readers and critics of this 
generation to be fair to Pope either as a poet or as a 



274 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

man. He is the spokesman of a dead time, separated from 
ours by the most fundamental differences in its ideals of 
po e and his literature and of life. So absolutely is he 
Time - bound up with this time, that we must try to 

enter it in imagination if we would understand and sym- 
pathize with its typical poet. The literary taste of the 
age was satisfied with correctness, grace, and finish ; 
Pope's poetry complied with these conditions and is 
smooth, polished, concise, and lucid. Besides this, Pope 
has given one poem to the literature as unparalleled of its 
kind as Paradise Lost or Hamlet ; that airiest creation 
of the satiric fancy, The Rape of the Lock. 

As a man, our thoughts of Pope waver between con- 
tempt and pity. The world knows him to have been in- 
ordinately vain, intoxicated by applause, and agonizingly 
sensitive to criticism ; it knows him to have been peevish 
and irritable ; capable, when his self-love was touched, 
of retaliating with a fierceness of malice fortunately rare 
even in the history of genius. He engaged in some 
petty and under-hand plots in the hope of increasing his 
reputation, and his love of intriguing was so great that, 
in the famous phrase of Dr. Johnson, " he hardly drank 
tea without a stratagem." Yet, vindictive and spiteful 
as he seems, Pope loved his mother with a touching and 
beautiful devotion ; cripple as he was, he had the heart 
of a soldier. In spite of the physical drag of lifelong 
weakness and suffering, he set before himself the high 
purpose of excelling in his chosen art, and, in a rough 
and brutal time, he won and kept the headship in English 
letters. In extenuation of his faults it is but just to re- 
member that he lived in a generation of slander and in- 
trigue, when religious belief was shaken, and noble ideals 
seemed dead. " The wicked asp of Twickenham," one 
of his many enemies called him ; but delicate, tetchy, 
morbid, is it a wonder that he should have used his 



INTRODUCTION TO THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 275 

sting ? Thinking of Pope, we cannot but pity the crooked 
and puny body ; shall we dare to fail in pity for the 
warped and crooked soul? 

INTRODUCTION TO THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 

The Rape of the Loek, the most perfect poem of its 
kind in the literature, owes its existence to a trifling in- 
cident, and to the casual suggestion of a origin of the 
peace-maker. By its very origin we are Poem - 
carried back into that gay society of Queen Anne's 
London, in which Pope moved, and which it is the main 
purpose of the poem to satirize and depict. It appears 
that there was an " estrangement " between the family 
of Mistress Arabella Fermor, a young lady of fashion, and 
that of Lord Petre. That unfortunate nobleman had 
stolen a lock of Mistress Fermor's hair, and The Rape 
of the Lock had, as Pope put it, been taken too 
seriously.* Mr. Caryl, a friend to both sides in this dis- 
tressing matter, laid the situation before Pope, with 
whom he was likewise on friendly terms, and asked him 
to write a poem that should turn the whole thing into a 
jest, and restore the offended parties to good humor. 
The subject was singularly adapted to the peculiar turn 
of Pope's genius, and the airy and glittering structure he 
reared on this slight foundation proved his most original 
and probably most perfect work. The first draft of The 
Rape of the Lock, consisting of only two cantos, after 
having been privately circulated in manu- 

. . . . . -r, , T . Public a- 

senpt, was printed in 1712 in Bernard Lin- tion of First 

1 Ti/T- tm Version, 1712. 

tot s Miscellany. The poem was a marked 
success, winning the praise of the great Addison, who 
called it merum sal, or pure wit ; b*ut there are reasons for 
supposing that Mistress Fermor felt far from soothed or 
flattered. Pope next determined, against the advice of 
* Spence's "Anecdotes." 



2 7 6 7Y/£ FRENCH IX FL UENCE. 

Addison, to increase the poem to five cantos. He had 
learned from a singular French book, Le Comte de Gabalis, 

The second something of the mysterious doctrine at- 
version, i 7 i 4 . tributed to a fabulous society called the Ros- 
icrucians, who were said to believe that each of the four 
elements was inhabited by a distinct order of spirits. 
Pope wished to make his poem burlesque the epic 
manner yet more closely, and to be correct, every epic 
was required to have some supernatural agency con- 
nected with the action of the poem. The fantastic 
notions of the Rosicrucians suggested to Pope that he 
could supply the required supernatural element in a 
novel manner. He therefore adroitly introduced into 
his new version fairy-like sylphs and sooty gnomes, ele- 
mental spirits of air and earth, in the place of the regu- 
lation gods and goddesses of the classic epic. The 
famous description of the game of ombre was also added. 
The work, thus enlarged, came out in 17 14 with a patro- 
nizing dedication to Mistress Fermor, in which an at- 
tempt at propitiation was made by declaring that her 
poetical counterpart Belinda resembled her in nothing 
but beauty. 

In addition to the foundation for the poem already 
mentioned, Pope had a somewhat similar work of 
Boileau's Le Lutriu, the Lectern, a satire on the clergy, 
who are made to quarrel over the location of a reading 
desk, and an Italian poem, Tarsoni's Secchia Rapita, or 

other sources Rape °f the Bucket, written to satirize the 
of the Poem. pe tty Italian wars.* But in this case, as in 
many others, to enumerate the materials with which a 
great artist works, molding or amplifying them as his 
genius wills, is but to heighten our appreciation of his art. 
It is the prerogative of genius to turn to account those 

*A brief account of this poem is given in Sismondi's " Lit. of Europe," 
vol. i. p. 460, Bonn's edition. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 277 

hints which to the ordinary mind are barren of sugges- 
tion. Poems cannot be compounded by any mere mix- 
ture of elements, however ingenious ; they must be 
created, and, in his masterpiece of wit and fancy, Pope 
shows in his own way this transforming and creating 
power as truly as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton 
show it in theirs. 

In The Rape of the Lock, Pope constitutes himself the 

poet laureate of the trivial ; making the graceful nothings 

of fashionable society seem yet more trifling 

The Poem. J J & 

by affecting to treat them with the high 
seriousness of the heroic. In the Fine Lady s Journal 
we live in imagination the daily life of a London 
belle ; The Rape of the Lock is the epic of a day in the 
empty and frivolous calendar of beauty. With mock 
solemnity we follow the fortunes of Belinda through her 
little round of idleness and pleasure. We see her luxuri- 
ously slumbering on till noon, when her lapdog, Shock, 
awakens her ; we are present at the toilet, and watch 
the progress of " the sacred rites of pride." And through 
the day, with its pleasure party up the Thames, its cards, 
its tea drinking, and its tragic catastrophe of the severed 
curl, the mighty import of •each incident is heightened 
by the unseen presence of supernatural beings, who as- 
sist unknown at the parting of her hair, " preserve the 
powder" of her cheeks " from too rude a gale," or seek 
to guard from threatened dangers her lapdog or her 
Jocks. It has been said that Pope had a moral purpose 
in this solemn mockery ; that it is " a continuous satire 
on a tinsel existence "; and that the central motive of the 
whole is to be found in the speech of Clarissa with its 
concluding couplet : 

" Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll ! 
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul." 



278 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

It is more likely that the upholders of such a view 
have fallen into the error of the respective families of 
Lord Petre and Mistress Fermor, and ''taken the mat- 
ter too seriously." In the Dunciad Pope had a genuine 
personal grievance, and the darts of his satire are driven 
home and tipped with venom. But in The Rape of 
the Lock there is neither personal wrath nor the slight- 
est undercurrent of a moral indignation. The satire is 
playful, and the strokes as harmless as those in the con- 
test of the lords and ladies, where the weapons are fans, 
lightning glances, and a pinch of snuff. 

When we yield ourselves fully to the graceful charm 
of the poem, we feel that the intrusion of a serious 
moral purpose would overweight its airy and irresponsi- 
ble levity. But apart from artistic considerations, it is 
not likely that Pope himself regarded the matter from 
the point of view of a social reformer. He is amused at 
the brilliant follies he describes ; he treats them with the 
flippancy and cleverness of the man of the world ; but he 
has neither the depth of feeling, nor the belief in the 
latent capacity of the men and women he satirizes, 
to really long to make them better. For women he 
exhibits a playful and invincible contempt. They are 
inherently, and, so far as appears, hopelessly vain and 
frivolous; their hearts are "moving toy shops"; their 
interests flirting, dressing, and shopping. The whole 
tone of the dedication to Mistress Fermor, a composi- 
tion on which Pope greatly prided himself, is one of 
lofty condescension to feminine incapacity, all the more 
insufferable because it is intended to be complimentary. 
However we may delight in the wit, sparkle, and fancy 
of The Rape of the Lock — and we can hardly admire 
them too much — we should realize that not only is the 
poem so nicely balanced that its pretended seriousness 
never slips into real earnestness, but that if we insist on 



IXTRODUCTION TO THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 279 

taking it seriously, its implied moral is an exceedingly 
bad one. For it is not only the vain and trifling that is 
satirized. The poem is largely a burlesque of noble and 
beautiful ideals, and its wit chiefly consists in placing 
the sacred or the admirable on a seeming equality with 
the trifling or the absurd. In this travesty of the sub- 
lime, the wrath of Achilles is.Yeplaced by the petulant 
vexation of Belinda. The world is reversed, and the un- 
important is the only thing worthy of our concern. We 
are amused because all ordinary standards are changed, 
and we hear in the same breath of the state counsels and 
the tea-drinking of a queen, of the deaths of husbands 
and of lapdogs, of the neglect of prayers and the loss of 
a masquerade. In Gulliver s Travels we are entertained 
by the upsetting of our conceptions of physical relations, 
we see man become a pygmy among giants, a giant 
among pygmies ; in The Rape of tlic Lock we are enter- 
tained by a similar reversal of our moral and spiritual 
ideas, and in its tolerant cynicism the petty become great, 
the great petty. 

From the moral aspect such wit, however entertain- 
ing, is not without its element of danger. It is a fact 
full of significance, when we stand back and look at the 
large movements in the history of English literature, 
that the most perfect and original poem which early 
eighteenth century England produced, was the mockery 
of the heroic : that in it the very froth of life should 
sparkle, crystallized forever into a fairy fretwork of 
exquisite tracery. Before this was Shakespeare's pas- 
sion ; before this, too, the sightless eyes of Milton were 
raised to Heaven beholding the invisible. Yet it is a 
great thing that the race which gave life to Hamlet and 
to Paradise Lost should have been capable of creating 
also The Rape of the Lock. 



280 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 

DEDICATION. 

To Mrs. Arabella Fermor. 
Madam : 

It will be in vain to deny that I have some regard for this piece, 
since I dedicate it to you. Yet you may bear me witness, it was 
intended only to divert a few young ladies, who have good sense 
and good humor enough to laugh not only at their sex's little 
unguarded follies, but at their own. But as it was communi- 
cated with the air of a secret, it soon found its way into the 
world. An imperfect copy having been offered to a bookseller, 
you had the good nature, for my sake, to consent to the pub- 
lication of one more correct. This I was forced to, before I had 
executed half my design, for the machinery was entirely wanting 
to complete it. 

The machinery, madam, is a term invented by the critics to signify 
that part which the deities, angels, or demons are made to act in a 
poem. For the ancient poets are in one respect like many modern 
ladies : let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make 
it appear of the utmost importance. These machines I determined 
to raise on a very new and odd foundation, the Rosicrucian doctrine 
of spirits. 

I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a 
lady; but it is so much the concern of a poet to have his words 
understood, and particularly by your sex, that you must give me 
leave to explain two or three difficult terms. 

The Rosicrucians are a people I must bring you acquainted with. 
The best account I know of them is in a French book called " Le 
Comte de Gabalis," which, both in its title and size, is so like a novel 
that many of the fair sex have read it for one by mistake. Accord- 
ing to these gentlemen the four elements are inhabited by spirits, 
which they call sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and salamanders. The 
gnomes, or demons of earth, delight in mischief ; but the sylphs, 
whose habitation is in the air, are the best conditioned creatures 
imaginable. . . . 

As to the following cantos, all the passages of them are as fabulous 
as the vision at the beginning, or the transformation at the end, ex- 
cept the loss of your hair, which I always mention with reverence. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 28 1 

The human persons are as fictitious as the airy ones ; and the char- 
acter of Belinda, as it is now managed, resembles you in nothing but 
in beauty. 

If this poem had as many graces as there are in your person, or in 
your mind, yet I could never hope it should pass through the world 
half so uncensured as you have done. But let its fortune be what it 
will, mine is happy enough, to have given me this occasion of assur- 
ing you that I am, with the truest esteem, 

Madam, 
Your most obedient, humble servant, 

A. Pope. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 

CANTO I. 

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, 

What mighty contests rise from trivial things, 

I sing. This verse to Caryl, Muse ! is due ; 

This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view ; 

Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, 5 

If she inspire, and he approve my lays. 

Say what strange motive, Goddess ! could compel 
A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle ? 
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd, 

Could make a gentle beile reject a lord ? 10 

In tasks so bold, can little men engage ? 
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage? 

Sol thro' white curtains shot a tim'rous ray, 
And op'd those eyes that must eclipse the day ; 

Now lap-dogs give themselves the rousing shake, 15 

And sleepless lovers, just at twelve awake ; 

1. The poem is a burlesque epic, and begins, after the usual manner, 
with the statement of the subject and the invocation to the muse. Cf. 
the opening lines of the great epics, particularly the " Iliad," Pope's trans- 
lation. 

3. Caryl, a friend of Pope's who confided to him the incident on which 
the poem was founded. See Introduction to the "Rape of the Lock," 
P- 277. 

12. An imitation of Virgil, "zEneid," bk. i. 1. 11. 



282 THE FRENCH I NFL HENCE. 

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock'd the ground, 
And the press'd watch return"' d a silver sound. 
Belinda still her downy pillow prest, 

Her guardian sylph prolong'd the balmy rest. 20 

'Twas he had summon'd to her silent bed 
The morning dream that hover'd o'er her head ; 
A youth more glitt'ring than a birthnight beau, 
(That ev'n in slumber caused her cheek to glow) 
Seem'd to her ear his winning Hps to lay, 25 

And thus in whispers said, or seem'd to say: 
" Fairest of mortals, thou distinguish'd care 
Of thousand bright inhabitants of air ! 
If e'er one vision touch'd thy infant thought, 

Of all the nurse and all the priest have taught — 30 

Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen, 
The silver token, and the circled green, 
Or virgins visited by angel pow'rs, 
With golden crowns and wreaths of heav'nly flow'rs — 
Hear and believe ! thy own importance know, 35 

Nor bound thy narrow views to things below. 
Some secret truths, from learned pride conceal'd, 
To maids alone and children are reveal'd. 
What tho' no credit doubting wits may give ? 
The fair and innocent shall still believe. 40 

23. The dressing at court at the birthnight balls, given to celebrate the 
birthdays of certain of the royal family, was unusually splendid. 

32. Silver token. — The piece of money which the fairies were believed to 
drop in the shoe of the diligent housemaid as a reward. In Dryden's version 
of Chaucer's "Wife of Bath," we find, I.15 : 

" The dairymaid expects no fairy guest 
To skim the bowls and after pay the feast ; 
She sighs and shakes her empty shoes in vain, 
No sz'/ver penny to reward her pain." 

And in an old ballad called " The Faery's Farewell " is this verse : 

" And though they sweepe theyr hearths no less 
Than mayds were wont to doe, 
Yet who of late for cleanliness 
Finds sixpence in her shoe ? " 

The circled green is also the fairies' work, being the rings left in the grass 
after their midnight dances thereon. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 283 

Know, then, unnumber'd spirits round thee fly, 

The light militia of the lower sky ; 

These, tho' unseen, are ever on the wing, 

Hang o'er the Box, and hover round the Ring. 

Think what an equipage thou hast in air, 45 

And view with scorn two pages and a chair. 

As now your own, our beings were of old, 

And once inclos'd in woman's beauteous mould ; 

Thence, by a soft transition, we repair 

From earthly vehicles to these of air. 50 

Think not, when woman's transient breath is fled, 

That all her vanities at once are dead ; 

Succeeding vanities she still regards, 

And tho' she plays no more, o'erlooks the cards. 

Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, 55 

And love of Ombre, after death survive. 

For when the fair in all their pride expire, 

To their first elements their souls retire, 

The sprites of fiery termagants in flame 

Mount up, and take a salamander's name. 60 

Soft yielding minds to water glide away, 

And sip, with nymphs, their elemental tea. 

The graver prude sinks downward to a gnome, 

In search of mischief still on earth to roam. 

The light coquettes in sylphs aloft repair, 65 

And sport and flutter in the fields of air. 

Know farther yet : whoever fair and chaste 

Rejects mankind, is by some sylph embrac'd : 

For spirits, freed from mortal laws, with ease 

Assume what sexes and what shapes they please, 70 

44. "The 'Box' at the theatre, and the 'Ring' in Hyde Park are fre- 
quently mentioned as the two principal places for the public display of beauty 
and fashion." — Elwin. 

62. Tea. — Pronounced tay until the middle of the eighteenth century. 
See "English, Past and Present," by R. C. Trench, p. 182. In canto iii. 
1. 8, tea rhymes with obey. „ 

66. See letter of dedication, for Rosicrucians. The idea of making the 
spirits of the elements deceased mortals is an ingenious variation of Pope's 
own. The passage is a good example of Pope's habitual contempt for 
women . 

70. Parody on "Paradise Lost," bk. i. 1. 423. 



284 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

What guards the purity of melting maids, 

In courtly balls and midnight masquerades, 

Safe from the treach'rous friend, the daring spark, 

The glance by day, the whisper in the dark, 

When kind occasion prompts their warm desires, 75 

When music softens, and when dancing fires ? 

'Tis but their sylph, the wise celestials know, 

Tho' honor is the word with men below. 

Some nymphs there are too conscious of their face, 

For life predestin'd to the gnomes embrace. 80 

These swell their prospects and exalt their pride, 

When offers are disdain'd, and love deny'd ; 

Then gay ideas crowd the vacant brain, 

While peers, and dukes, and all their sweeping train, 

And garters, stars, and coronets appear, 85 

And in soft sounds, ■ Your Grace ' salutes their ear. 

'Tis these that early taint the female soul, 

Instruct the eyes of young coquettes to roll, 

Teach infant-cheeks a hidden blush to know, 

And little hearts to flutter at a beau. 90 

Oft', when the world imagine women stray, 

The sylphs thro' mystic mazes guide their way ; 

Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue, 

And old impertinence expel by new. 

What tender maid but must a victim fall 95 

To one man's treat, but for another's ball ? 

When Florio speaks what virgin could withstand, 

If gentle Damon did not squeeze her hand ? 

With varying vanities, from ev'ry part, 

They shift the moving toyshop of their heart 100 

Where wigs with wigs, with sword-knots sword-knots strive, 

Beaus banish beaus, and coaches coaches drive. 

This erring mortals levity may call ; 

Oh, blind to truth ! the sylphs contrive it all. 

Of these am I, who thy protection claim, 105 

A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name. 

Late, as I rang'd the crystal wilds of air, 

105. /. e., " claim to protect thee." The language here is, to say the least, 
ambiguous ; on their face the words might mean ' ' claim to be protected by 
thee." 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 285 

In the clear mirror of thy ruling star 

I saw, alas ! some dread event impend, 

Ere to the main this morning sun descend, 1 10 

But heav'n reveals not what, or how, or where. 

Warn'd by the sylph, oh, pious maid, beware ! 

This to disclose is all thy guardian can : 

Beware of all, but most beware of man ! " 

He said ; when Shock, who thought she slept too long, 115 

Leap'd up, and wak'd his mistress with his tongue. 
'Twas then, Belinda ! if report say true, 
Thy eyes first open'd on a billet-doux ; 
Wounds, charms, and ardors were no sooner read, 
But all the vision vanished from thy head. 120 

And now, unveil'd, the toilet stands displayed, 
Each silver vase in mystic order laid. 
First, rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores, 
With head uncover'd, the cosmetic pow'rs. 

A heav'nly image in the glass appears ; 125 

To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears. 
Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side, 
Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride. 
Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here 

The various off'rings of the world appear; 130 

From each she nicely culls with curious toil, 
And decks the goddess with the glitt'ring spoil. 
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, 
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box; 

The tortoise here and elephant unite, 135 

Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white, 
Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 
Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux. 
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms ; 
The fair each moment rises in her charms, 140 

115. The lap-dog was an important part of the fine lady's outfit. Compare 
" Fine Lady's Journal/' supra, p. 265. «* 

130. Apparently imitated from Spectator, No. 69, May, 1711. "The 
single dress of a woman of quality," etc. With this account of the 
toilet compare Taine's " Eng. Lit.," vol. iii. p. 346; Stephen's "Life of 
Pope," Eng. Men of Letters Series, p. 40, and " Ency, Brit.," art. on 
" Pope," vol. xix, 



286 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

Repairs her smiles, awakens e'v'ry grace, 

And calls forth all the wonders of her face ; 

Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, 

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. 

The busy sylphs surround their darling care, 145 

These set the head, and those divide the hair, 

Some fold the sleeve, while others plait the gown ; 

And Betty's prais'd for labors not her own. 



CANTO 11. 

Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain, 

The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, 150 

Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams 

Lanch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames. 

Fair nymphs, and well-dress'd youths around her shone, 

But ev'ry eye was fixed on her alone. 

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, 155 

Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore. 

Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, 

Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those. 

Favors to none, to all she smiles extends ; 

Oft' she rejects but never once offends. 160 

Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, 

And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. 

Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, 

Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide ; 

If to her share some female errors fall, 165 

Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all. 

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, 
Nourish'd two locks, which graceful hung behind 
In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck 

With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck. ' 170 

Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, 
And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. 
With hairy sprindges we the birds betray, 
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey, 

166. A better rendering has been suggested by Wakefield : " Look in 
her face, and you forget them all." 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 287 

Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare, 175 

And beauty draws us with a single hair. 

Th' advent'rous baron the bright locks admir'd ; 
He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspir'd ; 
Resolv'd to win, he meditates the way, 

By force to ravish, or by fraud betray ; 180 

For when success a lover's toil attends, 
Few ask, if fraud or force attain 'd his ends. 

For this, ere Phoebus rose, he had implor'd 
Propitious Heav'n and ev'ry pow'r ador'd, 

But chiefly Love — to Love an altar built 185 

Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. 
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves ; 
And all the trophies of his former loves ; 
With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre, 

And breathes three am'rous sighs to raise the fire. 19° 

Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes 
Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize : 
The pow'rs gave ear, and granted half his pray'r ; 
The rest the winds dispers'd in empty air. 

But now secure the painted vessel glides, 195 

The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides, 
While melting music steals upon the sky, 
And soften'd sounds along the waters die. 
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, 

Belinda smil'd, and all the world was gay, 200 

All but the sylph ; with careful thoughts oppressed, 
Th' impending woe sat heavy on his breast. 
He summons strait his denizens of air ; 
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair : 

Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, 205 

That seem'd but zephyrs to the train beneath. 
Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold, 
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold ; 
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, 

Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light, 210 

Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, 
Thin glitt'ring textures of the filmy dew, 
Dipped in the richest tincture of the skies, 
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes, 

183. See Taine on this passage. " Eng. Lit., 5 ' voL Hi, p. 348. 



288 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

While ev'ry beam new transient colors flings, 215 

Colors that change whene'er they wave their wings. 

Amid the circle, on the gilded mast, 

Superior by the head, was Ariel plac'd ; 

His purple pinions opening to the sun, 

He raised his azure wand, and thus begun : 220 

" Ye Sylphs and Sylphids, to your chief give ear ! 
Fays, Fairies, Genii, Elves, and Demons, hear ! 
Ye know the spheres and various tasks assigned 
By laws eternal to th' aerial kind. 

Some in the fields of purest ether play, 225 

And bask and whiten in the blaze of day. 
Some guide the course of wand'ring orbs on high, 
Or roll the planets thro' the boundless sky ; 
Some, less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light 

Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night, 230 

Or suck the mists in grosser air below, 
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow, 
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, 
Or o'er the glebe distill the kindly rain. 

Others on earth o'er human race preside, 235 

Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide ; 
Of these the chief the care of nations own, 
And guard with arms divine the British throne. 
Our humbler province is to tend the fair, 

Not a less pleasing, tho' less glorious care, 240 

To save the powder from too rude a gale, 
Nor let th' imprison'd essences exhale, 
To draw fresh colors from the vernal flow'rs, 
To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in show'rs 
A brighter wash, to curl their waving hairs, 245 

Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs, 
Nay, oft', in dreams invention we bestow, 
To change a flounce, or add a furbelow. 
This day black omens threat the brightest Fair 
That e'er deserv'd a watchful spirit's care ; 250 

248. Furbelow. — A pleated or gathered flounce, Dr. Johnson gives an 
impromptu derivation of this word [fur and below], with the following 
definition: "fur sewed on the lower part of the garment, an ornament." — 
Diet. See also Spectator, No. 129. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 289 

Some dire disaster, or by force, or slight ; 

But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night. 

Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, 

Or some frail China jar receive a flaw, 

Or stain her honor, or her new brocade, 255 

Forget her pray'rs, or miss a masquerade, 

Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball, 

Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall. 

Haste, then, ye spirits ! to your charge repair : 

The flutt'ring fan be Zephyretta's care ; 260 

The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign ; 

And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine ; 

Do thou, Crispissa, tend her fav'rite lock ; 

Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock. 

To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note, 265 

We trust the important charge, the petticoat : 

Form a strong line about the silver bound, 

And guard the wide circumference around. 

Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, 

His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, 270 

Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, — 

Be stopped in vials, or transfix'd with pins, 

Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie, 

Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye ; 

Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, 275 

While clog'd he beats his silken wings in vain ; 

Or alum styptics with contracting pow'r 

Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flower; 

Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel 

The giddy motion of the whirling mill, 280 

In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, 

And tremble at the sea that froths below ! " 

He spoke ; the spirits from the sails descend. 
Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend ; 

261. That is, her eardrops, set with brilliants. — Wakefield. 

263. Note that the names of these spirits correspond to their several charges. 
Wakefield says that " to crisp" was frequently used by the earlier writers 
for " to curl." Latin, crispo. 

27b. Compare, in " The Tempest," Ariel in the cloven pine. Act 
i. sc. 2. 



290 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair ; 285 

Some hang upon the pendants of her ear. 
With beating hearts the dire event they wait, 
Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate. 



CANTO III. 

Close by those meads, forever crown'd with flow'rs 

Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs, 290 

There stands a structure of a majestic frame, 

Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name. 

Here Britain's statesmen oft' the fall foredoom 

Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home ; 

Here thou, great Anna ! whom three realms obey, 295 

Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea. 

Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort, 

To taste a while the pleasures of a court. 

In various talk th' instructive hours they past, 

Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last. 300 

One speaks the glory of the British queen, 

And one describes a charming Indian screen ; 

A third interprets" motions, looks, and eyes ; 

At ev'ry word a reputation dies. 

292. Hampton Court, a palace begun by Wolsey, and presented by him 
to Henry VIII. Additions were made to it by William III., who spent 
much time there ; during his reign and that of Anne, Cabinet meetings 
were often held there. It stands about a mile from Hampton village, and 
directly on the Thames. Consult Macaulay," Hist, of Eng.," chap. ii. ; 
" Ency. Brit.," 9th ed., title " Hampton." 

296. See note on line 62, supra. 

302. India goods were very fashionable at this time, -and bazaars called 
" India shops " made a business of dealing in them. One poet, writing in 
1735, describes the fashionable ladies as taking 

" Their wonted range 
Through India shops, to Motteaux's or the Change, 
Where the tall jar erects his stately pride, 
With antic shapes in China's azure dyed; 
There careless lies a rich brocade unrolled, 
Here shines a cabinet with burnished gold." 

— Dodsley, "The Toy Shop." 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 291 

Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat, 305 

With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that. 

Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day, 
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray ; 
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, 

And wretches hang that jury-men may dine ; 310 

The merchant from the Exchange returns in peace, 
And the long labors of the toilet cease. 
Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites, 
Burns to encounter two adventrous knights, 

At Ombre singly to decide their doom ; 315 

And swells her breast with conquests yet to come. 
Strait the three bands prepare in arms to join, 
Each band the number of the sacred nine. 
Soon as she spreads her hand, the aerial guard 

Descend, and sit on each important card : 320 

First Ariel perch'd upon a matadore, 
Then each according to the rank they bore ; 
For sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, 
Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place. 

Behold four kings in majesty rever'd, 325 

With hoary whiskers and a forky beard, 
And four fair queens, whose hands sustain a flower, 
Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r, 
Four knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band, 
Caps on their heads, and halberds in their hand, 330 

305. " The snuffbox of the beau, and the fan of the woman of fashion, 
are frequent subjects of ridicule in the Spectator. The fan was employed 
to execute so many little coquettish manoeuvres that Addison ironically pro- 
posed that ladies should be drilled in the use of it, as soldiers were trained to 
the exercise of arms." — El win. The essays referred to may be read in the 
class ; see Spectator, Nos. 102 and 138. Political emblems, or scenes from 
the reigning sensation, were sometimes painted on fans. See Sidney's " Eng. 
in the 18th Cent.," vol. i. p. 101. 

312. From Swift's "Journal of a Modern Lady," written in 1728, we learn 
that the fashionable dinner hour, when "the long labors of the toilet 
cease," was four o'clock. — Elwin. See also "The Fine Lady's Journal," 
p. 265. Clarinda seems to have usually dined " from three to four." 

315. Ombre. — A game of , cards of Spanish origin. It was played by 
three persons, the one who named the trump (in this case Belinda) playing 
against the other two. 



292 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE 

And particolor'd troops, a shining- train, 
Drawn forth to combat on the velvet plain. 

The skillful nymph reviews her force with care ; 
Let spades be trumps ! she said ; and trumps they were. 

Now move to war her sable matadores, 335 

In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors. 
Spadillio first, unconquerable lord ! 
Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board, 
As many more Manillio forced to yield, 

And march'd a victor from the verdant field. 340 

Him Basto followed, but his fate more hard 
Gain'd but one trump and one plebian card. 
With his broad sabre next, a chief in years, 
The hoary majesty of spades appears, 

Puts forth one manly leg, to sight reveal'd ; 345 

The rest his many color'd robe conceal'd. 
The rebel knave, who dares his prince engage, 
Proves the just victim of his royal rage. 
Ev'n mighty Pam, that kings and queens o'erthrew 
And mow'd down armies in the fights of Lu, 350 

Sad chance of war ! now destitute of aid, 
Falls undistinguish'd by the victor spade ! 

Thus far both armies to Belinda yield ; 
Now to the baron fate inclines the field. 

His warlike amazon her host invades, 355 

Th' imperial consort of the crown of spades. 
The club's black tyrant first her victim dy'd, 
Spite of his haughty mien, and barb'rous pride. 
What boots the regal circle on his head, 
His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread, 360 

341. To understand the following passage, some knowledge of the game 
of ombre is required, for description of which see " Hoyle's Games," under 
" Quadrille." 

The Matadores — Spadille or " Spadillio," Manille or " Manillio," and 
Basto — were the three principal cards, and ranked respectively as first, sec- 
ond, and third in power. Spadille was always the ace of spades, and Basto 
the ace of clubs; but Manille depended upon the trump. With a black trump 
(spades or clubs) Manille was the two of trumps ; with a red trump (hearts 
or diamonds) Manille was the seven of trumps. 

349. Pam. — The highest card in the game of Loo is the knave of clubs, or 
sometimes the knave of the trump suit. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 293 

That long behind he trails his pompous robe, 
And, of all monarchs, only grasps the globe ? 

The baron now his diamonds pours apace ; 
Th' embroider'd king who shows but half his face, 
And his refulgent queen, with pow'rs combin'd, 365 

Of broken troops an easy conquest find. 
Clubs, diamonds, hearts, in wild disorder seen, 
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green. 
Thus when dispers'd a routed army runs 

Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons, 370 

With like confusion different nations fly, 
Of various habit, and of various dye ; 
The pierc'd battalions disunited fall, 
In heaps on heaps ; one fate o'erwhelms them all. 

The knave of diamonds tries his wily arts, 375 

And wins (oh, shameful chance !) the queen of hearts. 
At this the blood the virgin's cheek forsook, 
A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look ; 
She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill, 

Just in the jaws of ruin, and codille. 380 

And now (as oft in some distemper'd state) 
On one nice trick depends the gen'ral fate ; 
An ace of hearts steps forth ; the king unseen 
Lurked in her hand, and mourned his captive queen. 
He springs to vengeance with an eager pace, 385 

And falls like thunder on the prostrate ace. 
The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky ; 
The walls, the woods, and long canals reply. 

Oh, thoughtless mortals ! ever blind to fate, 
Too soon dejected, and too soon elate. 390 

Sudden these honors shall be snatch'd away, 
And curs'd forever this victorious day. 

For lo ! the board with cups and spoons is crown 'd, 
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round ; 
On shining altars of Japan they raise 395 

380. " If either of the antagonists made more tricks than the ombre (see 
note to line 315, p. 291) the winner took the pool and the ombre had to replace 
it for next game. This was called codille." — Elwin. 

394. " Coffee was introduced into England shortly before the middle of the 
seventeenth century. The first coffeehouse is said to have been opened at 



2 94 THE FRENCH INFL UENCE. 

The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze ; 

From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, 

While China's earth receives the smoking tide. 

At once they gratify their scent and taste, 

And frequent cups prolong the rich repast, 400 

Straight hover round the fair her airy band ; 

Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd, 

Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd, 

Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade. 

Coffee (which makes the politician wise, 405 

And see thro' all things with his half-shut eyes) 

Sent up in vapors to the baron's brain 

New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain. 

Ah, cease, rash youth ! desist ere 'tis too late, 

Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate ! 410 

Chang'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air, 

She dearly pays for Nisus' injur'd hair ! 

But when to mischief mortals bend their will, 
How soon they find fit instruments of ill ! 

Just then Clarissa drew with tempting grace 415 

A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case ; 
So ladies in romance assist their knight, 
Present the spear, and arm him for the fight. 
He takes the gift with rev'rence, and extends 

The little engine on his fingers' ends ; 420 

This just behind Belinda's neck he spread, 
As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head. 

Oxford by a man named Jacobs, in 1650. See D'Israeli's 'Cur. of Lit.'; 
Chambers' 'Book of Days'; the Tatler and Spectator, passim, Macaulay's 
' Hist, of Eng.,' etc."— Hales. 

405. For coffeehouses see note to line 394, supra. Coffeehouses were 
thought to play so important a part in politics that in 1675 Charles II. at- 
tempted to suppress them by royal proclamation. An official report made at 
this time declared " that the retailing of coffee might be an innocent trade, 
but as it was used to nourish sedition, spread lies, and scandalize great men, 
it might also be a common nuisance." 

409. For Scylla, see Anthon's Class. Die. under "Nisus," and Ovid's 
"Metam.,"viii. The Scylla here mentioned must be distinguished from the 
monster of that name associated with Charybdis in the " Odyssey " and else- 
where. 

416 and 420. Compare Milton's " Lycidas," 1. 130. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 295 

Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair ; 

A thousand wings by turns blow back the hair ; 

And thrice they twitch 'd the diamond in her ear ; 425 

Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near. 

Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought 

The close recesses of the Virgin's thought ; 

As on the nosegay in her breast reclin'd, 

He watch 'd th' ideas rising in her mind 430 

Sudden he view'd, in spite of all her art, 

An earthly lover lurking at her heart. 

Amaz'd, confused, he found his pow'r expir'd ! 

Resign'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd. 

The peer now spreads the glitt'ring forfex wide, 435 

T' inclose the lock ; now joins it, to divide. 

Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd 

A wretched sylph too fondly interposed ; 

Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the sylph in twain 

(But airy substance soon unites again). 440 

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever 

From the fair head, for ever, and for ever ! 

Then flash 'd the living lightning from her eyes, 
And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies. 

Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, 445 

When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last ; 
Or when rich China vessels fall'n from high, 
In glittering dust and painted fragments lie. 

Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine, 
The victor cried ; the glorious prize is mine ! 450 

While fish in streams, or birds delight in air, 
Or in a coach and six the British fair, 
As long as Atalantis shall be read, 

426. The frequent imitation of the classic epic should be noted. " Thrice 
she looked back," etc., corresponds to Latin ter. El win quotes Virg. 
" ^Eneid," vi. 1. 950, Dryden's Trans. The same construction is imitated by 
Macaulay: 

" Thrice looked he at the city, 
Thrice looked he at the dead ; 
And thrice came on in fury, 
And thrice turned back in dread." 

— Horatius, stanza 42. 
440. See " Paradise Lost," bk. vi. 1. 330. 
453. Atalantis.—" The New Atlantis," pub. 1709, was a popular and 



296 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed, 

While visits shall be paid on solemn days, 455 

When num'rous waxlights in bright order blaze, 

While nymphs take treats, or assignations give, 

So long my honor, name, and praise shall live ! 

What time would spare, from steel receives its date, 

And monuments, like men, submit to fate ! 460 

Steel could the labor of the gods destroy, 

And strike to dust the imperial tow'rs of Troy ; 

And hew triumphal arches to the ground. 

What wonder then, fair nymph ! thy hair should feel 

The conqu'ring force of unresisted steel ? 465 

CANTO IV. 

But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppressed, 

And secret passions labor'd in her breast. 

Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive, 

Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, 

Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, 470 

Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss, 

Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, 

Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry, 

E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair, 

As thou, sad virgin ! for thy ravish'd hair. 475 

For that sad moment, when the sylphs withdrew 
And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew. 
Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite, 
As ever sullied the fair face of light, 

Down to the central earth, his proper scene, 480 

Repairs to search the gloomy cave of Spleen. 

scandalous book, suited, according to Warburton, to the taste of the " better 
vulgar." Hales reminds us that it was one of the works in Leonora's 
library. — Spectator, No. 37. 

454. Construction here probably in imitation of Virg. "yEneid," i. 
1. 607. 

465. Unresisted. — That which cannot be resisted ; irresistible. 

478. Umbriel. — Lat. umbra, a shade, and umbrifer, shade-bringing. 

481. Spleen. — An organ of the body whose function is uncertain ; formerly 
supposed to be the seat of anger, caprice, and particularly low spirits, or, as 
we should say, " the blues." In Pope's time, spleen was frequently used in 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 297 

Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome, 
And in a vapor reach'd the dismal dome. 
No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, 

The dreaded east is all the wind that blows. 485 

Here in a grotto, sheltered, close from air, 
And screen'd in shades from day's detested glare, 
She sighs for ever on her pensive bed, 
Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head. 

Two handmaids wait the throne; alike in place, 490 

But cliff* ring far in figure and in face. 
Here stood Ill-nature like an ancient maid, 
Her wrinkled form in black and white array 'd ; 
With store in pray'rs for mornings, nights, and noons, 
Her hand is fill'd, her bosom with lampoons. 495 

There Affectation, with a sickly mien, 
Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen, 
Practis'd to lisp and hang the head aside, 
Faints into airs, and languishes with pride, 

On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, 500 

Wrapt in a gown for sickness and for show. 
The fair ones feel such maladies as these, 
When each new night-dress gives a new disease. 
A constant vapor o'er the palace flies, 

Strange phantoms rising as the mists arise, 505 

Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted shades, 
Or bright, as visions of expiring maids : 
Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires, 
Pale spectres, gaping tombs, and purple fires ; 

Now lakes of liquid gold, Elysian scenes, 510 

And crystal domes, and angels in machines. 

the last sense, and Austin Dobson calls it " the fashionable eighteenth 
century disorder." Matthew Green's poem, "The Spleen "(pub. i737)throws 
much light on the subject ; see also Lady Winchelsea's Ode on the same 
subject (pub. 1701). Extracts from these poems will be found in Ward's 
"Eng. Poets," vol. iii. pp. 32 and 197 ; see also Tatlefz&A Spectator, passim. 

485. Why the " east" wind ? See Cowper's " Task," bk. iv. 1. 363. 

503. "The 'gown* or ' night dress' of Pope is the dressing gown of our 
day." — Elwin. How is this word used by Shakespeare ? See note in "Mac- 
beth," Furness Var. Ed., act ii. sc. 2, 1. 70. 

511. Angels in machines. — /. e., coming to the aid of mankind. In 
Pope's time " machine " signified the supernatural agency in a poem ; thus in 



298 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

Unnumber'd throngs on every side are seen, 

Of bodies chang'd to various forms by Spleen. 

Here living teapots stand, one arm held out, 

One bent ; the handle this, and that the spout ; 515 

A pipkin there, like Homer's tripod, walks ; 

Here sighs a jar, and there a goose-pie talks : 

Men prove with child, as pow'rful fancy works, 

And maids turn'd bottles call aloud for corks. 

Safe passed the gnome thro' this fantastic band, 520 

A branch of healing spleenwort in his hand. 

Then thus address'd the pow'r — " Hail, wayward queen ! 

Who rule the sex to fifty from fifteen ; 

Parent of vapors, and of female wit, 

Who give th' hysteric, or poetic fit ; 525 

On various tempers act by various ways, — 

Make some take physic, others scribble plays ; 

Who cause the proud their visits to delay, 

And send the godly in a pet to pray ! 

A nymph there is, that all thy pow'r disdains, 530 

And thousands more in equal mirth maintains. 

But, oh ! if e'er thy gnome could spoil a grace, 

Or raise a pimple on a beauteous face, 

Like citron-waters matrons cheeks inflame, 

Or change complexions at a losing game ; 535 

Or caus'd suspicion when no soul was rude, 

Or decompos'd the head-dress of a prude, 

Or e'er to costive lap-dog gave disease, 

Which not the tears of brightest eyes could ease, 

Hear me, and touch Belinda with chagrin ; 540 

That single act gives half the world the spleen." 

" The Rape of the Lock," the machinery consists of sylphs and sylphides ; in 
the " Iliad," of gods and goddesses. "The changing of the Trojan fleet 
into water nymphs is the most violent machine in the whole ' yEneid.' " — Addi- 
son. Hales compares Lat. Deus ex ?nachina, and Greek Qebg arro [irjxo-vfjg. 

516. See " Iliad," xviii. 1. 440, Pope's Trans. 

524. Vapors. — Spleen. Elwin says the disease was probably named 
from the atmospheric vapors which were reputed to be a principal cause of 
English melancholy. He quotes Cowper's " Task," bk. vi. 1. 462. 

534. Citron-water. — A drink composed of wine, with the rind of lemons 
and citron. Swift's " Modern young lady " takes a large dram of citron- 
water to cool her heated brains. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 299 

The goddess with a discontented air 
Seems to reject him, tho' she grants his pray'r. 
A vvond'rous bag with both her hands she binds, 
Like that where once Ulysses held the winds ; 545 

There she collects the force of female lungs, 
Sighs, sobs, and passions, and the war of tongues, 
A vial next she fills with fainting fears, 
Soft sorrows, melting griefs, and flowing tears. 

The gnome rejoicing bears her gift away, 550 

Spreads his black wings, and slowly mounts to day. 

Sunk in Thalestris' arms the nymph he found, 
Her eyes dejected, and her hair unbound. 
Full o'er their heads the swelling bag he rent, 

And all the furies issued at the vent. 555 

Belinda burns with more than mortal ire, 
And fierce Thalestris fans the rising fire. 
" O wretched maid ! " she spread her hands, and cried, 
(While Hampton's echoes " Wretched maid !" replied,) 
" Was it for this you took such constant care 56c 

The bodkin, comb, and essence to prepare ? 
For this your locks in paper durance bound ? 
For this with tort'ring irons wreath'd around ? 
For this with fillets strain'd your tender head, 

And bravely bore the double loads of lead ? 565 

Gods ! shall the ravisher display your hair, 
While the fops envy, and the ladies stare ? 
Honor forbid ! at whose unrival'd shrine 
Ease, pleasure, virtue, all our sex resign. 

Methinks already I your tears survey, 570 

Already hear the horrid things they say, 
Already see you a degraded toast, 
And all your honor in a whisper lost ! 
How shall I then your helpless fame defend ? 

'Twill then be infamy to seem your friend ! 575 

And shall this prize, th' inestimable prize, 
Expos'd through crystal to the gazing eyes, 
And heighten'd by the diamond's circling rays, 
On that rapacious hand for ever blaze ? 

562. The curl papers of ladies' hair used to be fashioned with strips of 
pliant lead. — Croker. For fashionable head-dresses, see Spectator. No. 98 ; 
Sidney's " Eng. in the 18th Cent.," vol. i. p. 90. 



3°0 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

Sooner shall grass in Hyde Park Circus grow, 580 

And wits take lodgings in the sound of Bow ; 
Sooner let earth, air, sea, to chaos fall, 
Men, monkeys, lapdogs, parrots, perish all." 

She said ; then raging to Sir Plume repairs, 
And bids the beau demand the precious hairs : 585 

(Sir Plume, of amber snuffbox justly vain, 
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.) 
With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face, 
He first the snuffbox open'd, then the case, 

And thus broke out—" My Lord ! why, what the devil ! 590 

Zounds ! damn the lock ! 'fore Gad, you must be civil ! 
Plague on 't ! 'tis past a jest to plunder locks : 
Give her the hair " — he spoke, and rapp'd his box. 

" It grieves me much," reply 'd the peer again, 
" Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain ; 595 

But by this lock, this sacred lock I swear, 
(Which never more shall join its parted hair ; 
Which never more its honors shall renew, 
Clipped from the lovely head where late it grew,) 
That, while my nostrils draw the vital air, 600 

This hand, which won it, shall forever wear." 
He spoke ; and speaking, in proud triumph spread 
The long-contended honors of her head. 

But Umbriel, hateful gnome ! forbears not so ; 
He breaks the vial whence the sorrows flow. 605 

Then see ! the nymph in beauteous grief appears, 
Her eyes half-languishing, half-drown'd in tears ; 
On her heav'd bosom hung her drooping head, 
Which, with a sigh, she rais'd ; and thus she said. 

£8r. In the sound of Bow. — /. <?., within the sound of the bells of St. Mary 
le Bow, an old and famous church in the heart of London. These were the 
bells which bade Dick Whittington " turn again." In Pope's time the City, 
or old part of London in the vicinity of this church, was avoided by fashion 
and the " wits." In Grub street, in this locality, many starving hack writers 
and scribblers, of the class Pope scourged in the '" Dunciad," had lodgings. 
See Hare's " Walks in London," p. 232 ; Spectator, No. 34. 

584. Sir Plume. — Sir George Brown. Speaking of the effect of the poem, 
Pope says: " Nobody but Sir George Brown was angry, and he was a good 
deal so, and for a long time. He could not bear that Sir Plume should talk 
nothing but nonsense." — Spence's "Anecdotes." 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 3 GI 

" For ever curs'd be this detested day, 610 

Which snatch'd my best, my fav'rite curl away ! 

Happy ! ah ten times happy had I been, 

If Hampton Court these eyes had never seen ! 

Yet am not I the first mistaken maid, 

By love of courts to numerous ills betray'd. 615 

Oh, had I rather unadmir'd remain'd 

In some lone isle, or distant northern land, 

Where the gilt chariot never marks the way, 

Where none learn Ombre, none e'er taste Bohea ! 

There kept my charms conceal'd from mortal eye, 620 

Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die. 

What mov'd my mind with youthful lords to roam ? 

Oh, had I stay'd, and said my pray'rs at home ! 

'Twasthis, the morning omens seem'd to tell: 

Thrice from my trembling hand the patch-box fell ; 625 

The tottering china shook without a wind ; 

Nay, Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind ! 

A sylph too warn'd me of the threats of fate, 

In mystic visions, now believ'd too late ! 

See the poor remnants of these slighted hairs ! 630 

My hand shall rend what ev'n thy rapine spares. 

These, in two sable ringlets taught to break, 

Once gave new beauties to the snowy neck ; 

The sister lock now sits uncouth, alone, 

And in its fellow's fate foresees its own ; 635 

UncuiTd it hangs, the fatal shears demands, 

And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands. 

Oh, hadst thou, cruel ! been content to seize 

Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these." 

CANTO V. 

She said ; the pitying audience melt in tears ; 640 

But fate and Jove had stopp'd the baron's ears. * 

In vain Thalestris with reproach assails ; 

For who can move when fair Belinda fails ? 

Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, 

While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. 645 

619. Bohea. — Pronounced bohay. Compare tea, note to line 62. 
645. Look up this allusion in "iEneid," bk. iv. 



3° 2 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan ; 
Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began : 

" Say, why are beauties prais'd and honor'd most, 
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast ? 
Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford, 650 

Why angel's call'd, and angel-like ador'd ? 
Why round our coaches crowd the white-gloved beaus ? 
Why bows the side box from its inmost rows ? 
How vain are all these glories, all our pains, 

Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains, 655 

That men may say, when we the front box grace, 
' Behold the first in virtue as in face ! ' 
Oh ! if to dance all night, and dress all day, 
Charm'd the smallpox, or chas'd old age away ; 

Who would not scorn what housewife's cares produce, 660 

Or who would learn one earthly thing of use ? 
To patch, nay ogle, might become a saint ; 
Nor could it sure be such a sin to paint. 
But since, alas ! frail beauty must decay, 

Curl'd or uncurl'd, since locks will turn to gray; 665 

Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, 
And she who scorns a man, must die a maid ; 
What then remains' but well our pow'r to use, 
And keep good-humor still whate'er we lose ? 

And trust me, dear ! good-humor can prevail, 670 

When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail. 
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll ; 
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul." 

So spoke the dame, but no applause ensu'd ; 
Belinda frowned, Thalestris call'd her prude. 675 

" To arms, to arms ! " the fierce virago cries, 
And swift as lightning to the combat flies. 
All side in parties, and begin th' attack ; 

646. Clarissa, — "A new character introduced in the subsequent editions, 
to open more clearly the moral of the poem, in a parody of the speech of 
Sarpedon to Glaucus in Homer." — Pope. See " Iliad," xii. 1. 310-328. 

653. In the theatres the gentlemen occupied the side, and ladies the front 
boxes. Cunningham quotes Steele's " Theatre," No. 3, January 9, 1720, 
where the representatives of a British audience are thus distributed : 
" Three of the fair sex for the front boxes, two gentlemen of wit and 
pleasure for the side boxes, and three substantial citizens for the pit." 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 3°3 

Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack ; 

Heroes' and heroines' shouts confus'dly rise, 680 

And base, and treble voices strike the skies. 

No common weapons in the hands are found ; 

Like gods they fight, nor dread a mortal wound. 

So when bold Homer makes the gods engage, 
And heav'nly breasts with human passions rage ; 685 

'Gainst Pallas, Mars ; Latona, Hermes arms ; 
And all Olympus rings with loud alarms ; 
Jove's thunder roars, heav'n trembles all around ; 
Blue Neptune storms, the bellowing deeps resound ; 
Earth shakes her nodding tow'rs, the ground gives way, 690 

And the pale ghosts start at the flash of day ! 

Triumphant Umbriel, on a sconce's height, 
Clapped his glad wings, and sate to view the fight. 
Propp'd on their bodkin spears, the sprites survey 
The growing combat, or assist the fray. 695 

While thro' the press enrag'd Thalestris flies, 
And scatters death around from both her eyes, 
A beau and witling perished in the throng ; 
One died in metaphor, and one in song. 

" O cruel nymph ! a living death I bear," 700 

Cried Dappervvit, and sunk beside his chair. 
A mournful glance Sir Fopling upward cast ; 
" Those eyes are made so killing " — was his last. 
Thus on Maeander's flow'ry margin lies 
Th' expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. 705 

When bold Sir Plume had drawn Clarissa down, 
Chloe stepp'd in, and kill'd him with a frown ; 
She smil'd to see the doughty hero slain, 
But at her smile the beau revived again. 

Now Jove suspends his golden scales in air, 710 

Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair, 
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side ; 
At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside. 

See, fierce Belinda on the baron flies, 
With more than usual lightning in her eyes ; 715 

Nor fear'd the chief th' unequal fight to try, 
Who sought no more than on his foe to die. 
But this bold lord, with manly strength endued, 

684. Compare "Iliad," viii. 1. 69-75 ; Virg. "^Eneid," xii. 1. 725-727. 



304 THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 

She with one finger and a thumb subdued, 

Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, 720 

A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw ; 

The gnomes direct, to ev'ry atom just, 

The pungent grains of titillating dust. 

Sudden with starting tears each eye o'erflows, 

And the high dome re-echoes to his nose. 725 

" Now meet thy fate," incens'd Belinda cried, 
And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. 
(The same, his ancient personage to deck, 
Her great-great-grandsire wore about his neck, 

In three seal-rings, which after, melted down, 730 

Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown ; 
Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, 
The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew ; 
Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, 
Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.) 735 

" Boast not my fall," he cried, "insulting foe ! 
Thou by some other shalt be laid as low. 
Nor think, to die dejects my lofty mind; 
All that I dread is leaving you behind ! 

Rather than so, ah let me still survive, 740 

And burn in Cupid'^ flames — but burn alive." 

" Restore the lock ! " she cries ; and all around 
" Restore the lock ! " the vaulted roofs rebound. 
Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 

Roar'd for the handkerchief that caused his pain. 745 

But see how oft' ambitious aims are cross'd, 
And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost ! 
The lock, obtain'd with guilt, and kept with pain, 
In ev'ry place is sought, but sought in vain. 

With such a prize no mortal must be blest, 750 

So Heav'n decrees ! with Heav'n who can contest ? 

Some thought it mounted to the lunar sphere, 



727. Bodkin. — A large ornamented hairpin. 

741. Dennis, a well-known critic and an enemy of Pope's, added with 
some point: "Whoever heard of a dead man that burnt in Cupid's 
flame ?" 

744. Ldbk up and explain this allusion. 



THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. 3°5 

Since all things lost on earth are treasured there. 

There heroes' wits are kept in pond'rous vases, 

And beaus' in snuffboxes and tweezer-cases. 755 

There broken vows and deathbed alms are found, 

And lovers' hearts with ends of riband bound, 

The courtier's promises, and sick man's pray'rs, 

The smiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs, 

Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea, 760 

Dried butterflies, and tomes of casuistry. 

But trust the Muse — she saw it upward rise, 
Tho' mark'd by none but quick poetic eyes ; 
(So Rome's great founder to the heav'ns withdrew, 
To Proculus alone confess'd in view.) 765 

A sudden star, it shot thro' liquid air, 
And drew behind a radiant trail of hair ; 
Not Berenice's locks first rose so bright, 
The heav'ns bespangling with dishevel'd light. 

The Sylphs behold it kindling as it flies, 770 

And pleas'd pursue its progress thro' the skies. 

This the beau monde shall from the Mall survey, 
And hail with music its propitious ray. 
This the blest lover shall for Venus take, 

And send up vows from Rosamonda's lake ; 775 

This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, 
When next he looks thro' Galileo's eyes ; 
And hence th' egregious wizard shall foredoom 
The fate of Louis, and the fall of Rome. 

Then cease, bright nymph ! to mourn thy ravish'd hair 780 

Which adds new glory to the shining sphere ! 
Not all the tresses that fair head can boast, 
Shall draw such envy as the Lock you lost : 

753. See " Ariosto," canto xxxiv. (Pope). Compare " Paradise Lost," bk. 
iii. 1. 459-462, and bk. ii. 1. 418-497. 

775. Rosamonda's Lake was a small oblong piece of waiter near the Pimlico 
gate of St. James Park. — Croker. 

776. John Partridge, an almanac maker and astrologer noted for his 
ridiculous predictions. He was ridiculed by Swift, Steele, Addison, and 
others. See Swift's "Bickerstaff Papers." For account of Partridge see 
Sidney's " Eng. in the 18th Cent.," vol. i. p. 268. 

777. Galileo's eyes. — Explain this allusion. 



306 THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 

For after all the murders of your eye, 

When, after millions slain, your self shall die : 785 

When those fair suns shall set, as set they must, 

And all those tresses shall be laid in dust, 

This lock the Muse shall consecrate to fame, 

And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name. 789 



TABLE OF PERIOD OF FRENCH INFLUENCE. 



307 



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J. Gottsched, 1700-1766. 

Poems, 1736. 

Plays. 

Louise Gottsched (his wife), 
translated Pope's " Rape of 
the Lock," also the Specta- 
tor. 

Klopstock, 1724-1803.' 

"The Messiah," Books I. -1 1 1., 
1748. 

Odes and Dramas. 

Kant, 1724-1804. 

11 Critique of Pure Reason." 

Ethics. 

Lessing, 1729-1781. 

" Laocoon," 1766. 

" Minna von Barnhelm," 1767. 

Herder, 1744-1803. 
"The (id." 

"The Idea of the Philosophy 
of History." 

Burger, 1748-1794. 
Ballads. 

Goethe, 1749-1832. 

" Wilhelm Meister," Part I., 

1795; complete, 1829. 
" Faust," Part I., 1808. 


5 


Culmination of French 
comedy under Mol- 
iere, 1622-1673. 

"Tartuffe." 

" Le Misanthrope." 

Pierre Corneille, 

1606-1684. 

" Mcdec." 

" LeCid." 

Bossuet, 1627-1704. 

" l.'llistoire l/niver- 
selle." 

M. Boileau Des- 
preaux, 1636-1711. 

Racine, 1639-1699. 
" Phedre." 
" Iphigenie." 

La Fontaine, 1621- 

1695. 
" Contcs." 

Fenelon, 1651-1715. 
" Tclemaque." 

Malebranche, 1631- 

1715- 
" Recherche de la 

Verite." 

Le Sage, 1668-1747. 
"Gil Bias." 




NEW SCHOOL OF WRITERS. 


Allan Ramsay, 1685-1758. 

Poems, 1 72 1. 

" The Gentle Shepherd," 1725. 

James Thomson, 1700-1748. 
The Seasons,' 1 1726-1730. 

"The Castle of Indolence," 
1748. 

Wm. Collins, 1721-1759. 

Persian Eclogues, 1742. 

Odes. 

Thomas Gray, 1716-1771. 

" Ode on Eton College," 1747. 

" Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard," 1751. 

Oliver Goldsmith", 1728-1774. 

" The Bee," 1759. 

"The Vicar of Wakefield, "1766. 

Thomas Percy (Bishop), 
1728-1811. 

" Reliqucs of Ancient Eng- 
lish Poetry," 1765. 

Richard B. Sheridan, 1751- 
1816. 

" Tin- Rivals," 1775. 

"The School for Scandal," 
1777- 

Frances Burney (Mme. 
d'Arblay), 1752-1840. 

" Evelina," 1778. 

" Camilla," 1796. 


I'OETS AND DRAMATISTS OF THE 
RESTORATION. 


Thomas Otway, 1651-1685. 

Plays. 

Nathaniel Lee, 1655-1692. 

Plays. 

John Dryden, 1631-1700. 

"Absalom and Achitophcl," 

1681-1682. 
Plays and satires. 
George Farquhar, 1678-1708. 

Plays. 

Wm. Wycherley, 1640-1715. 
Plays. 

Nicholas Rowe, 1674-1718. 

Plays. 

Sir John Vanbrugh, 1666- 

1726. 
Plays. 
Wm. Congreve, 1670-1729. 

Plays. f 

AUGUSTAN AGE. 

Joseph Addison, 1672-1719. 

"Cato," (acted) 171 ;. 

Essays for the Tatler, the 
Spectator ) and the Guard- 
ian, 1709-1714. 

Richard Steele, 1671-1729. 

Essays in the Tatler, the 
Spectator, and the Guard- 
ian, 1709-1714. 


u5 

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Charles II. lands at 

Dover, 1660. 
Puritan clergy driven out, 

1662. 
Royal Society at London. 

1662. 
Plague and fire of London, 

1665. 

Declaration of Indulgence 

withdrawn, 1672. 
Oates invents Popish Plot, 

1678. 
Rye House Plot, 1682. 
Lord Russell and Algernon 

Sidney executed, 1683. 
Charles II. dies, 1685. 
James II. reigns, 1685. 
Battle of Sedgenioor, 1685. 
William of Orange lands at 

Torbay, 1688. 
Plight of James, 1688. 
Declaration of Rights, 

1689. 
William and Mary 

reign, 1689. 
Battle of the Boyne, 1690. 



3 o8 



THE FRENCH I NFL UENCE. 






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Schiller, 1759-1805. 
" The Robbers," 1781. 
" Wallenstein," 1799. 
"William Tell," 1804. 

Jean Paul Richter, 1763- 

1825. 
"Titan," 1800. 

Romantic School : 

Augustus von Schlegel, 

1767-1845. 
Ion" (a tragedy). 
Poems and Criticism. 

Friedrich von Schlegel, 

1772-1829. 
" History of the Poetry of 
Greece and Rome." 

Fouque (Baron de la Motte), 

„ I 777-i843; 

Undine, 1814. 
" Sintram," 1814. 

Transcendentalists : 

Fichte, 1762-1814. 
" Critique of all Revelation. '* 
" The Vocation of the 
Scholar." 


w 
u 

< 
K 


Montesquieu, 1689- 

I755-. 
" Esprit des Lois." 

Voltaire, 1694-1778. 
" Edipe." 
" Henriade." 

J. J.' Rousseau, 1713- 

1778. 
"Julie." 
" Le Contrat Social." 

Denis Diderot, 1723- 

1784. 
" Encyclopedie," with 
others, especially 
D'Alembert, 1717- 
1783- 
Mile, de Lespinasse, 

1732-1776. 
Lettres. 

Saint Lambert, 1707- 

1783. 
" Les Saisons." 

Bernardin de Saint 

Pierre, 1737-1814. 
" Paul et Virginie." 

Chateaubriand, 1768- 

1848. 
"Atala." 
"Rene." 


W 
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1 

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O 

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o 
a 

u 
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& 

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2 


Wm. Cowper, 1731-1800. 
Olney Hymns (with Newton), 

1779. 
"The Task," 1785. 
George Crabbe, 1754-1832. 
" Inebriety," 1775. 
" The Village," 1783. 
Wm. Blake, 1757-1827. 
Poetical Sketches, 1783. 
" Songs of Innocence," 1789. 
Robert Burns, 1759-1796. 
Poems, 1786. 
Wm. Wordsworth, 1770- 

1850. 
" An Evening Walk," 1793. 
Lyrical Ballads, 1798-1800. 
Samuel T. Coleridge, 1772- 

1834. 

Ihe Fall of Robespierre" 

(with Southey), 1794. 
" The Ancient Mariner," 1798. 
Robert Southey, 1774-1843. 
Poems by Bion and Moschus, 

1795- 
" Thalaba," 1801. 
" The Curse of Kehama," 1810. 
Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832. 
Translations of Ballads, 1796. 
"Marmion," 1808. 
Waverley Novels, 1814-1831. 


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Matthew Prior, 1664-1721, 
"The Country Mouse and 
City Mouse," 1687. 

John Gay, 1688-1732. 
" Trivia," 1715. 
Daniel Defoe, 1661-1731. 
"Robinson Crusoe," 1719- 
1720. 

Alexander Pope, 1688-1744. 
"The Rape of the Lock," 

1712-1714. 
" Essay on Man," 1732-1734. 
Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745. 
"The Battle of the Books," 

1698. (Published 1704.) 
"The Tale of a Tub," 1698. 

(Published 1704). 
" Gulliver's Travels," 1726. 

Samuel Richardson, 1689- 

1761. 
" Pamela," 1740. 
" Clarissa Harlowe," 1748. 
H. Fielding, 1707-1754. 
" The History of Tom Jones," 

1749. _ 
"Amelia," 1751. 

Lawrence Sterne, 1713-1768. 
"Tristram Shandy," 1759- 
1767. 


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W 

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3 
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Queen Anne reigns, 

1702-1714. 
Battle of Blenheim, 1704. 
Battle of Ramillies, 1706. 
Battle of Malplaquet, 1709. 
Treaty of Utrecht, 1713. 

George I. reigns, 1714- 
1727. 

Ministry of Sir R. Walpole, 
1721. 

George II. reigns, 1727- 
1760. 

The Methodists appear in 
London, 1738. 

Resignation of Walpole, 
1742. 

Charles Edward lands in 
Scotland, 1745. 

Battle of Falkirk, 1746. 
^Battle of Culloden, 1746. 

Battle of Plassey, 1757. 

Wolfe's victory on Heights 
of Abraham, 1759. 

George III. reigns, 1760- 
1820. 

Brindley's canal over the 
Irwell, 1761. 

Wedgwood establishes Pot- 
teries, 1764. 

Hargreaves invents Spin- 
ning-Jenny, 1764. 



TABLE OF PERIOD OF FRENCH INFLUENCE. 3°9 



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3IO THE FRENCH INFLUENCE. 



NOTES AND REFERENCES. 



i. History. — For state of England on accession of 
Charles II., Macaulay's History of Eng., vol. i. chap. 3. On 
eighteenth century England, Lecky's " England in the 
Eighteenth Century," vol. i. chap, iv.*, Sidney, " England in 
the Eighteenth Century." 

2. Literature. — Dryden: Saintsbury's Life of, in Eng. Men 
of Letters Series; Macaulay's Essay on. 

Addison: Courthope's Life of, in Eng. Men of Letters 
Series ; Macaulay's Essay on. 

Steele: Life of, by Austin Dobson, in Eng. Worthies. 
" Eighteenth Century Essays," by Austin Dobson, contains se- 
lections from the most important periodicals of the century. 
" Days with Sir Roger de Coverley " (Macmillan) is an attrac- 
tive collection of the de Coverley papers only, and may be 
used with class. Leslie Stephen's " Eng. Thought in the 
Eighteenth Century," vol. ii., contains a good chapter on the 
literature. Thackeray's " Eng. Humorists"; Leslie Stephen's 
" Life of Johnson," in Eng. Men of Letters Series. Thackeray 
introduces Addison and Steele into "Henry Esmond," pas- 
sages from which may be read in class. 

Alexander Pope: Stephen's Life of, in Eng. Men of Letters 
Series; Johnson's I^ife of, in " Lives of the Poets "; Lowell's 
Essay on, in " My Study Windows." For " Rape of the Lock " 
see Courthope and Elwin's Ed., Int. and Notes to R. of L., 
and Hale's " Longer Eng. Poems." 



PART IV. 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Since cir. 1750. 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

1750 to 1830. 



Cbapter 1T, 

The Beginning of Modern Literature. 

The history of England during the greater part of the 
eighteenth century is the history of the most rapid and 
sweeping changes in almost every depart- changes in 
ment of the nation's life — political, social, ccnulry e £ng- 
and intellectual. Long before the century's land * 
close, the brilliant, corrupt, heartless, and skeptical Eng- 
land of Pope, Bolingbroke, and Walpole had utterly disap- 
peared, and in its place we find a changed nation, living 
under totally different social and industrial conditions^ 
and holding diametrically opposite ideas of life. As we 
should expect, this fresh national life utters itself in new 
forms of literature, and with the rise of modern England 
we reach the beginning of a literary period surpassed 
only by that of the Elizabethans. Before approaching 
this modern literature, we must speak briefly of some 
of the historical and social changes with which it is in- 
timately associated. 

Underlying many of these changes we find one great 
motive cause. England was becoming tired of cynicism, 
skepticism, and the reliance on mere reason. At heart the 
nation was too deeply emotional and religious for such a 
mood as that which came with the Restoration to en- 
dure long ; somehow in the desert men felt the gathering 
rush of new feelings, and there arose within them the 



314 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

longing of the prodigal to arise and return, as their hearts 
were again stirred with pity, with enthusiasm, and with 
faith. 

A comparison of England under Walpole and under 
Pitt helps us to realize the growth of this faculty for en- 
thusiasm. The administration of Robert 
pole (b. 1676, d. Walpole (172 1- 1 742) was an interval of pro- 
found peace, during which the energies of 
England were largely given to trade and to the devel- 
opment of her internal resources. There was little to 
agitate the nation, but wealth enormously increased.* 
Walpole, the guiding spirit during this prosperous 
period, was the embodiment of prosaic commonplace. 
Country-bred, shrewd, and narrow-minded, he had great 
business ability, but was essentially incapable of ap- 
proaching life from its ideal or imaginative side. 
Openly corrupt in his political methods, and openly in- 
credulous as to the possibility of conducting practical 
politics by other means, he laughed at appeals to the 
higher nature as " schoolboy flights," and declared that 
men would come out of these rhapsodies about patriotism 
and grow wiser. Such traits are characteristic of the 
early eighteenth century England ; we recognize points 
of kinship between them and the literary spirit of Pope. 
But before the fall of Walpole better political ideas began 
to take form in the so-called Patriot party, and by 1757 
William Pitt, the animating spirit of the new movement, 
was virtually at the head of affairs. Pitt, the Great Com- 
moner, brings purer political methods and a broader 
outlook for England. With his burning eloquence, his 
intense patriotism, his reliance on the English people, he 
represents the new enthusiasm and the new democracy. 
After the fall of Walpole, England's period of peace was 

* Green's " Hist.' Eng. People," vol. iv. pp. 126-160, may be read in 
class. 



RE A CTIONAR Y MO VEMENTS. 3 J 5 

suddenly broken, and during the years of Pitt's suprem- 
acy she towered above the other nations, thrilling her 
people's hearts with a new patriotism as they saw her 
laying in India and in America the foundations of a 
world empire. 

The new sympathies that stirred the heart of England 
are seen in the great wave of religious feeling that came 
with the rise of Methodism. In the midst The Rise of 
of the cold, intellectual speculation of Bolin- Methodism - 
broke and the skepticism of Hume, we are startled by the 
passionate appeal of Whitfield and Wesley to the con- 
science and to the heart. By 1738 the work of these 
men was fairly begun, and their marvelous eloquence 
and intense conyiction struck deep into the souls of thou- 
sands. Butler in his Analogy betiveen Natural and Re- 
vealed Religion (1736), relied, for his support of Christi- 
anity, on close and definite reasoning, but the preaching 
of Whitfield made the tears trickle down the grimy faces 
of the Bristol colliers. And this influence went far out- 
side of the ranks of the Methodists themselves ; it helped 
to arouse the Church of England, which had grown in- 
different and lethargic, to a full and earnest life. 

The effects of this revival of a more spiritual life in the 
midst of an unbelieving, immoral, and often brutal society 
are seen in the growth of a practical charity, 

. f 1 , ^ The Deeper 

and in an increasing; sense of human brother- sympathy with 

Man. 

hood and of the inherent dignity of man. The 
novel sense of pity becomes wide and heartfelt enough to 
take in not men only, but all wantonly hurt and suffering 
creatures. An awakened humanity suppresses the cruel 
sport of bull-baiting ; it softens the barbarous rigor of the 
criminal laws. John Howard endures the noisome horrors 
of the English prisons, that he may lighten the unspeak- 
able sufferings of the captive ; William Wilberforce 
labors for the abolition of slavery. 



3 J 6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

And with this compassion for humanity, we draw near 

to those great social upheavals which usher in our modern 

M - , , democracy. Men become possessed with a 

The Growth of J r 

?h™A Cr e C S- Re- f ever f° r tne " rights of man," they begin to 
volution. speculate on the reorganization of society ; 

and across the Channel the coming storm cloud of the 
French Revolution grows big even to bursting. Then at 
last, when the storm breaks, the finest spirits of England 
are uplifted by an exalted passion for the cause of man. 

Modern England, thus beginning to take shape even 
during the lifetime of Pope and YValpole, had a litera- 
ture of its own ; but the older literary 

Literature ' 

after the Death methods and ideas by no means came to an 

ofPope. J 

end with the beginning of the new. Accord- 
ingly, after the "rise of this new literature, or from about 
1725, we find the literature of England flowing, as it were, 
in two separate streams. The one, marked by a mode or 
fashion of writing which began definitely with Dryden, 
may be traced from Dryden on through Pope, its most 
perfect representative, through Samuel Johnson, until its 
dissipation in the time of Wordsworth ; the other, spring- 
ing from a different source and of a different spirit, its 
purer and more natural music, audible almost before that 
of Pope has fairly begun, flows on with gathered force and 
volume, and with deepening channel, almost to our own 
time. We have traced the first of these streams until the 
death of Pope ; we must now indicate the general direc- 
tion of its course after that event. Many of the features 
which had characterized this Restoration literature in the 
reign of Anne were prolonged far into the century, and 
some writers modeled their style on Pope and Addison un- 
til towards the century's close. The prosaic spirit, in which 
intellectual force was warmed by no glow of passion, con- 
tinued to find a suitable form of expression in didactic and 
satiric verse. In the protracted moralizings of Young's 



JOHNSON AND THE OLDER LITERATURE. 3 I 7 

Night Thoughts (1743), and in Blair s Grave (i743)> a 
shorter but somewhat similar poem, we detect a general 
resemblance to the Essay on Man ; while Henry Brooke s 
poem on The Universal Beauty (1735), and Erasmus Dar- 
win s Botanic Garden (1791), obviously echo the favorite 
metrical cadence of Pope. In the two works last named, 
poetry is called in to expound science instead of theol- 
ogy or philosophy, but the tone is none the less didactic, 
and it is worth nothing that in The Botanic Garden the 
Rosicrucian sylphs and gnomes of The Rape of the Lock 
reappear as personifications of the elemental forces of 
nature. 

But there is something more important for us to notice 
than such single instances of the survival of the earlier 
literary spirit. For forty years after the Samuel 
death of Pope, the greatest personal force J° hnson - 
in English Literature and criticism, the dominant power 
in the literary circles of London, was Samuel Johnson 
(1709-1784), a man whose sympathies lay with the literary 
standards of the earlier part of the century, and who had 
but little comprehension of the new spirit which in his 
lifetime was beginning to displace them. Johnson, the 
son of a poor bookseller in Litchfield, came up to London 
in 1737, with three acts of a play in his pocket, and the 
determination to make his way through literature. For 
many years his life was one of terrible hardship, but he 
bore his privations manfully, with unflinching courage, 
and with a beautiful tenderness towards those yet more 
unfortunate. He obtained employment on a periodical, 

The Gentleman s Magazine, and soon afterwards made a 
great hit by his satire of London (1738), a poem which 
attracted the favorable notice of Pope. He wrote another 
satire, The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), conducted 

The Rambler (March 20, 1750-March 14, 1752) and The 
Idler (April, 175 8- April, 1760), papers similar in design 



3i8 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

to The Tatler and The Spectator, and in 1755 published 
his English Dictionary. Shortly after the accession of 
George III. Johnson's burdens were lifted by the grant 
of a pension of ^300 a year. During the remainder of 
his life he ruled as the literary autocrat of London. He 
was the leading spirit in a literary club founded by him 
in 1764 in conjunction with the painter, Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds. Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Fox, Gibbon, and 
Sheridan were members of this club, yet among such men 
Johnson maintained his supremacy. Macaulay says that 
" the verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books 
were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient 
to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the 
sheets to the service of the trunk-maker and the pastry- 
cook." * After writing several other prose works Johnson 
died December 13, 1784, full of years and honors. While 
Johnson's works are now comparatively little read, he 
remains one of the most familiar and strongly marked 
personages in the literature. We cannot now do more 
than notice his connection with the literary history of his 
century. While he wrote some strong and quotable verse, 
full of vigorous and telling rhetoric, he is pre-eminently 
a prose writer in an age of prose. The 

Johnson the ... . . f -, . 

Prose writerof uninspired and practical temper 01 nis time 

an Age of Prose. . . 

found prose rather than poetry its natural 
medium. And while its great prose writers were not given 
to lofty flights, they showed a wonderful power of minute 
and truthful observation. Throughout the earlier litera- 
ture of the century, whether poetry or prose, we find a 
painstaking definiteness and accuracy in the reproduction 
of contemporary life. In spite of their play of fancy, such 
works as The Rape of the Lock, and many of the 
periodical essays, are marked by a careful and often piti- 
less realism. In the Robinson Crusoe of Daniel De Foe 

* Art. on Johnson, " Ency. Brit." 



JOHNSON AND THE OLDER LITERATURE. 3 J 9 

(1719) this realistic presentation of life assumes a narra- 
tive form. In this wonderful story, as in the same writer's 
History of the Plague (1722), our sense of reality is per- 
fect through the patient enumeration of a vast number 
of details. The same irresistible naturalness pervades 
the Gulliver s Travels of Jonathan Swift (1726), which is 
triumphantly realistic in spite of its fantastic elements. 
It was during Johnson's lifetime that the novel of daily 
life and manners, the most perfect outcome of this realis- 
tic prose, took definite form. From the publication of 
the Pamela of Charles Richardson in 1740, the novel, 
which in our day takes the place of the drama in the 
Elizabethan age, steadily advances until our time. This 
prose and that of Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, and the 
other great historians we cannot stop to consider ; but 
it should be remembered that Johnson was connected 
with the development of the novel by his publication of 
the didactic story of Rassclas (1759), and that his essays, 
his series of Lives of the^Poets, and his account of a Trip 
to the Hebrides, give him a foremost place among the 
prose writers of his day. His poems of London and The 
Vanity of Human Wishes follow the satiric style made 
popular by Dryd'en and Pope, a style greatly in vogue 
when Johnson began his literary career ; and are as 
obviously modeled after Pope in their versification and 
manner. The Rambler is as plainly imitated from The 
Tatler and The Spectator, although through Johnson's 
ponderous, many-syllabled style it follows*them, in the 
clever phrase of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, as " a 
packhorse follows a hunter." Yet while Johnson thus 
stands as the bulwark of the old order, both by his own 
work and by his critical verdicts on that of others, all 
about him new agitations were already rife. Absolute 
as was his literary dictatorship, his throne was reared on 
the verge of that revolution which begins the modern 



3 2 ° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

period of our literary history. Between Johnson's arrival 
in London in 1737, and his death in 1784, new feelings 
utterly opposed to many of his traditions and prejudices, 
and remote from his understanding and comprehension, 
were quickening into life around him. Those changes in 
literary standards had already begun which have led to 
the reversal of nearly every important dictum uttered by 
this great literary lawgiver in matters of criticism. 

The new literature was the outcome of that same 

reaction from the earlier standards of the century which 

we have already noticed. The literature of 

The Beginning . .. . ... •^•111 

of the Modern the age of Anne is essentially artificial, deal- 

Period. . 7 , ," . . ,.,.'. , , , 

ing with the intrigues or frivolities of a fash- 
ionable city life. The new literature turned from the city 
streets to a region where art and fashion had not entered. 
In the midst of the soulless literature of the town, with 
its close atmosphere, its drawing room pettiness, its 
painted faces, and its slanderous tongues, there comes 
to our heated cheeks the fresh, pure air from the woods 
and fields, as poetry turns from Belinda at her toilet to 
the uncontaminated world of nature. In 1725, Allan 
Ramsay, an Edinburgh wig-maker and bookseller, pub- 
lished his Gentle Shepherd* a pastoral in which we catch 
a genuine whiff of country air, and where, instead of the 
classic Damon and Daphnes which Pope's conventional 
method led him to introduce on English soil, we have 
veritable country people, plain Patie and Roger. Indeed, 
Ramsay's poem was an attempt to carry out the views of 
certain critics who had attacked the artificial method of 
pastoral writing, of which Pope was then the most notori- 
ous example, for the ingenuity of its classic allusions, and 

* The original version of "The Gentle Shepherd" was included, under the 
name of " Patie and Roger," in a collection of Ramsay's poems, pub. 1721. 
See criticism in The Guardian for April 7, 1713, No. 23. See also " Life of 
Pope," supra, p. 272. 



JOHNSON AND THE OLDER LITERATURE. 3 21 

for its want of fidelity to actual country life. In the same 
year another Scotchman, James Thomson (i 700-1 748), 
began the publication of The Seasons (1726-1730), a poem 
full of truthful and beautiful descriptions of nature and 
of country life, seen under the changing aspects of the 
four seasons. Thomson made a significant break with 
the poetical methods of Pope by abandoning the heroic 
couplet for blank verse ; but while The Seasons shows 
a close and sympathetic observation of nature, the lack 
of entire simplicity and directness in its style tells us that 
poetry was not yet free from the conventionalities and 
mannerisms of the Augustan writers.* 

From the publications of The Seasons we find a growing 

* It can be made an interesting study for the class to collect instances of 
Thomson's adherence to the more artificial manner. Note e. g. his classic 
allusions, frequent Latinisms, and use of balanced adjectives after the man- 
ner of Pope. In the following the italicized words are obviously not in ac- 
cordance with our present style of descriptive writing. 

"At last 
The clouds consign their treasures to the field 
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool 
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow 
In large effusion o'er the freshened world." 

— Spring, 171. 

Again, the lines following are constructed after the manner of Pope : 

" The sultry South collects a potent blast." 

— Autumn. 

" Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends." 

— Winter. 
Cf Pope. 

" No grateful dew descends from evening skies. * 

The industrious bees neglect their golden stores." 

— Winter, 4th pastoral. 
Cf. also "Windsor Forest." 

Note also in " The Seasons " the effect produced by the adjective folio wing 

the noun : 

" every copse 
Deep tangled, tree irregular," etc. 
and 

" Three undulations 
Mix mellifluous." 

—Spring. 



322 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

delight in nature and a further departure from the poetic 
manner of Pope, in the beautiful Odes of Wm, Collifis (1746) 
and in the famous Elegy in a Country Churchyard of 
Thomas Gray (175 1). Nature and " the short and simple 
annals of the poor " are the respective themes of the Trav- 
eller (1764) and The Deserted Village (1770) of Oliver Gold- 
smith, while The Minstrel of James Beattie (bk. i., 1771) 
shows us a youthful poetic genius nourished and inspired 
by the influence of mountain, sky, and sea. These poets 
not only wrote on new subjects ; they showed a tendency 
to return to the poetic manner of the Elizabethans. Thus 
Shenstone s Schoolmistress (1742), Thomson's Castle of 
Indolence (1748), and Beattie's Minstrel, were written in 
the stanza of Spenser, a metre entirely ignored by the 
poets of the Restoration school, while the lyrics of Col- 
lins have a musical charm absent from English poetry 
since the time of Milton. This poetry of nature was 
carried forward in the work of George Crabbe, who pos- 
sessed the power to bring nature before us by his truth 
of observation and his unaffected if homely style. A still 
further step was made in the poems of Wm. Cowfler, whose 
Task (1785) is a great advance on the work of Thomson 
in the reality and directness of its natural descrip- 
tions. 

But while such new elements were coming into English 
verse, we must remember that Johnson and others con- 
tinued to iollow doggedly the track of Pope. The Sea- 
sons preceded London by thirteen years, and Collins's 
Odes were a year earlier than The Vanity of Human 
Wishes ; yet in the poetry of Johnson we have but the 
frigidity and didacticism of Pope witho'ut his lightness, 
fancy, or grace, and we look in vain for Thomson's feel- 
ing for nature or Collins's fresh lyric note. 

That deep feeling which, as the eighteenth century 
advanced, impelled men to turn from the artificial life of 



JOHNSON AND THE OLDER LITERATURE. 3 2 3 

society to the world of nature, was closely associated with 
a sympathetic interest in the hitherto unregarded lives of 
the country-folk and the poor. The repre- TheNewSym- 
sentative writers of Queen Anne's time had pathy with Man. 
despised and satirized humanity. We have seen Pope's 
low estimate of it, his malice towards men, his ingrained 
disbelief in women ; and even more bitter and terrible 
is the corrosive scorn and hatred which, as in Gulliver s 
Travels, the unhappy Swift pours out upon the race. 
But in the new group of writers there breathes that grow- 
ing tenderness for the miseries of the neglected and the 
poor, that sympathy for all living creatures, and that 
ever deepening sense of the nobility of man and of the 
reality of human brotherhood, which we have already 
noted as a motive power in the history of the time. 
Gray's Elegy is not merely a charming rural vignette, it 
is the poet's tribute to the worth of obscure and hum- 
ble lives. The Deserted Village is an indignant protest 
against the wealth and luxury which encroaches upon 
the simple happiness of the peasant, and in such lines 
as these we hear the voice of the new democracy: 

" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay; 
Princes and lords -may flourish or may fade — 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made — 
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed can never be supplied." * 

Crabbe brought the realism of the earlier part of the 
century to the painting of the homely and often repul- 
sive life of the country poor. In the opening lines of 
The Village he scorns the artificial pastoral of the older 

school, and declares 

" I paint the cot 
As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not."f 
* " The Deserted Village," 1. 51. 
f " The Village," bk. i. See the entire opening passage. 



324 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

The delight in nature, the renewed religious senti- 
ment, the sympathy with man, and the love of animals, 
all find expression in the life and work of Cowper. Not 
only did he declare, as in the familiar lines, that 

" God made the country, and man made the town," 

but he lived in a natural harmony with God's works, so 
that even the timid hare did not shun his footsteps, nor 
the stock-dove suspend her song at his approach. His 
gentle nature rises in indignation against cruelty, if it be 
but the cruelty of the man 

" Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm," 

and the indifference of the world to human suffering 
shocks and distresses him. Timid as he seems, he cries 
out with the voice of the on-coming democracy against 
" oppression and deceit," against slavery. 

" My ear is pained, 
My soul is sick with every day's report 
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. 
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, 
It does not feel for man." * 

This new sympathy with man and nature is further re- 
presented by the artist-poet William Blake (1757-1827), 
and by Robert Burns (17 '59-1796) until it culminates in the 
poets of the so-called Lake School, William Wordsivorth 
(1 770-1 850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772- 1834), and 
Robert Southey (1 774-1 843). With the three writers 
last-named, and with Sir Walter Scott, who represents a 
phase of the movement of which we have not yet spoken, 
the break with the classical or critical school of Pope 
becomes complete. This entire movement was the ex- 
pression in England of an impulse to abandon a too 
literal and subservient imitation of the classic writers, 

* "The Task," bk. ii. 1. 5. 



JOHNSON AND THE OLDER LITERATURE. 3 2 5 

for such an independent expression as their own genius 
prompted. In Germany a similar form took place in the 
11 Sturm und Drang " (Storm and Pressure) school of 
Herder and others (in 1770-1782), and later in the Ro- 
mantic School especially distinguished for its enthu- 
siasm for the Middle Ages. A corresponding school 
arose in France during the early half of the present cen- 
tury, of which the great poet was Victor Hugo, the great 
critic Sainte-Beuve. These modern or anti-classic writers, 
whether in Germany, England, or France, are styled 
Romanticists, or writers belonging to the Romantic School. 
By Romantic, used in this technical sense, is Definition of 
meant the distinctively new spirit, in liter- Romantlc - 
ature or art, of the modern world, relying mainly on it- 
self for its subjects, its inspiration, and its rules of art, 
and denying that classic precedents are in all cases of 
binding authority. Thus the drama of the Elizabethans 
is often called the English Romantic drama, because, un- 
like that of the French, it disregarded certain dramatic 
principles of the Greeks ; while Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
Scott, and the other writers of that group, are styled 
Romantic, because they were animated by a modern 
spirit, because they trusted to inspiration rather than to 
precedent, and opposed the Classic School of Pope. 

One great element in this Romantic movement, first in 
England and afterwards in Germany, was a delight in the 
popular songs and ballads, a natural and spontaneous 
poetic form hitherto ignored as outside the bounds of 
literature. The English and Scottish Ballads, simple 
and genuine songs coming straight from the hearts of 
the people, untinged by classic conventionality and un- 
modified by foreign standards, were collected in Bishop 
Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry (1765). After this 
many similar collections were published, and about this 
time poets began to reproduce the ballad form, The 



$26 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

most noteworthy of these early imitations are the ballads 
of Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), amazing works of 
genius which their boy author pretended to have found 
among some ancient records of Bristol. The same tend- 
ency is shown in the Ossian of James Macpherson (1762), 
a professed translation of some Gaelic epic poems, and in 
such simple ballads as Goldsmith's Hermit* Shenstone's 
Jemmy Dawson (1745), and Mickle's Mariner s Wife. 
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Christabel are a noble 
outcome of the old ballad literature, and from it also 
sprung the best poetry of Walter Scott. 

ROBERT BURNS.— 1759-1796. 

A more moving tenderness than that of the amiable 
and melancholy Cowper, an intenser stress of lyric passion, 
throbs in the songs of the Scotch plowman Robert Burns. 
In this great and unhappy genius, the new spirit flames 
out with amazing and original force. Pope had no room 
in his finished verse for the struggling poor ; the scholarly 
Gray had written of them with refinement and taste, sur- 
rounding them with a certain poetic halo ; but Burns was 
one of them. The soul of the peasant class reveals itself 
in the simple music of his songs, with the rich humor, the 
note of elemental passion, the irresistible melody learned 
from the popular ballads of his native land. " Poetry," 
wrote a great poet, " comes from the heart and goes to 
the heart," f This is eminently true of the poetry of 
Burns, whose best songs have that heartfelt and broadly 
human quality which penetrates where more cultured 
verse fails to enter, and which outlasts the most elaborate 

* About the date of "The Hermit " there has always been a doubt. Gold- 
smith was accused of taking the idea from "The Friar of Orders Gray" 
(Percy's " Reliques"), he claims to have read " The Hermit" to Bishop Percy 
before the publication of the " Friar." 

f William Wordsworth, 



ROBERT BURNS. 327 

productions of a less instinctive art. Robert Burns, the 
son of a small farmer in Ayrshire, was born January 25, 
1759. His family were poor, so that Burns could get but 
little regular education, and remained " a hard-worked 
plowboy." Through all his labor he was a great reader, 
having a ballad book before him at meal times, and whis- 
tling the songs of Scotland while guiding the plow. On 
the death of his father in 1784 Robert and his brother 
and sisters took a farm together, but it proved unprofit- 
able. By this time he had written numerous songs and 
had gained by them considerable local reputation. His 
affairs were so involved that he thought of leaving the 
country, but changed his mind on receiving an invitation 
from a Dr. Blacklock, who had heard of his poetical abil- 
ity, to visit Edinburgh. At Edinburgh, Burns, with his 
genius and flavor of rusticity, his massive head and glow- 
ing eyes, became the reigning sensation. In 1788 he leased 
a farm in Dumfriesshire, married Jean Armour, and spent 
one of his few peaceful and happy years. In 1789 he was 
appointed exciseman, that is, the district inspector of 
goods liable to a tax. From this time the habit of intem- 
perance gained upon him. His health and spirits failed, 
and spells of reckless drinking were followed by intervals 
of remorse and attempted recovery. His genius did not 
desert him, and some of his best songs were composed 
during this miserable time. He died July 21, 1796, worn 
out and prematurely old at thirty-seven, one of the great 
song-writers of the world. 

Burns speaks the universal language of passion not to 
be learned in the schools. His love-songs, from the im- 
passioned lyric flow of My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose, 
or V Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast, to the quiet anguish 
of Ae Fond Kiss and Then We Sever, or the serene beauty 
of To Mary in Heaven, are among the truest and best 
in the language. His Cotter s Saturday Night remains 



328 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

the unsurpassed idyl of " honest poverty," and in the 
ringing lines of A Man s a Man for a That, this Ayr- 
shire plowman gave to the world the greatest declaration 
in poetry of human equality. But like that of Cowper, 
Burns's comprehensive sympathy reaches beyond the 
circle of human life. He stands at the furrow to look at 
the " tim'rous " field-mouse, whose tiny house his plow 
has laid in ruins, and his soul is broad enough to think of 
the trembling creature gently and humbly, as his 

" Poor, earth-born companion an' fellow-mortal." 

He is the poet of nature as well as of man ; while 
in his stirring songs of Bannockburn he is the poet of 
patriotic Scotland. 

" Lowland Scotland," it has been said, " came in with 
her warriors and went out with her bards. It came in 
with William Wallace and Robert Bruce, and went out 
with Robert Burns and Walter Scott. The first two 
made the history ; the last two told the story and sung 
the song." 

"SELECTIONS FROM BURNS. 

TO A MOUSE. 
On turning her up in her nest with a plow, November, 1785. 

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, 
Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 

Wi' bickering brattle ! 
I wad be laith to rin and chase thee, 

Wi' murd'ring pattle ! * 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion, 

Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, 

An' fellow mortal ! 

* Pattle. — An implement for cleaning the plow. 



SELECTIONS FROM ROBERT BURNS. 3 2 9 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve ; 
What then ? Poor beastie, thou maun live ! 
A daimen icker in a thrave * 

'S a sma' request : 
I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave 

And never miss 't ! 

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! 
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin' ! 
An' naething, now, to bigt a new ane, 

O' foggage green ! 
An' bleak December's winds ensuin' 

Baith snellj and keen ! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, 
An' weary winter comin' fast, 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell, 
'Till crash ! the cruel coulter past 

Out thro' thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble, 
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! 
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble, 

But§ house or hauld, 
To thole|| the winter's sleety dribble 

An' cranreucMF cauld ! 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane 
In proving foresight may be vain ! 
The best laid schemes o' mice and men 

Gang aft a-gley 
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain 

For promised joy. 

Still thou art blessed compar'd wi' me!* 
The present only toucheth thee : 
But och ! I backward cast my e'e 

On prospects drear ! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see, 

I guess an' fear. 

* Daimen icker in a thrave. — An ear of corn occasionally. 

f Big.— To build. % Snell— Bitter. § But.— Without. 

| Thole. — Endure. ^[ Cranreuch. — Hoar-frost. 



33° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

bruce's address to his army at bannockburn. 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to victorie ! 

Now's the day, and now's the hour ; 
See the front o' battle lour ; 
See approach proud Edward's pow'r — 
Chains and slaverie ! 

Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? 

Let him turn and flee ! 

Wha for Scotland's king and law, 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
Let him follow me ! 

By oppression's woes and pains! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be free ! 

Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty's in every blow ! — 
Let us do or die ! 

a man's a man for a' that. 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that ? 
The coward slave, we pass him by, 

We daur be puir for a' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Our toils obscure, and a' that ; 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

The man's the gowd for a' that ! 



SELECTIONS FROM BURNS. 331 

What tho' on hamely fare we dine, 

Wear hodden-gray, and a' that ; 
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 

A man's a man for a' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 

Is king o' men for a' that ! 

Ye see yon birkie* ca'd a lord, 

Wha struts and stares, and a' that : 
Though hundreds worship at his word 

He's but a cooff for a' that ; 
For a' that, and a' that, 

His riband, star, and a' that, 
The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a' that ! 

A king can mak a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 

Guid faith, he maunna fa' that ! 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Their dignities and a' that, 
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, 

Are higher ranks than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it may — 

As come it will for a' that — 
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, 

May bear the gree, and a' that ; 
For a' that, and a' that, 

It's comin' yet for a' that, 
That man to man, the world o'er, 

Shall brothers be for a' that ! 

A RED, RED ROSE. 

Oh, my luve's like a red, red rose, 

That's newly sprung in June: 
Oh, my luve's like the melodie, 

That's sweetly play'd in tune. 

* Birkie,— h conceited fellow. \ Coof.—K blockhead, 



33 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 
So deep in luve am I : 

And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
'Till a* the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun : 

I will luve thee still, my dear, 
While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve ! 

And fare thee weel awhile ! 
And I will come again, my luve, 

Tho' it were ten thousand mile. 



The Era of Revolution. 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.— 1770-1850. 

With the closing years of the eighteenth century we 
reach the mighty social upheaval of the French Revolu- 
tion. During the early acts of this terrible drama, the 
vague doctrines and anticipations of poets and philoso- 
phers, who had looked for the coming of a golden age of 
peace and human brotherhood, seemed to many to have 
passed out of the region of speculation into that of 
actual fact, as they saw the whole fabric of the French 
feudal society crash into ruin. Cowper had cried out in 
The Task against the Bastile, as a shameful " house of 
bondage";* four years later it fell before the fury of 
a Parisian mob (1789). The barriers of custom and 
authority were swept away ; the floods were out ; the 
Revolution begun. The wild outcry for liberty, equality, 
fraternity, stirred a generous enthusiasm in many ardent 
spirits of England. The poet William Blake (1757-1827) 
walked the streets of London wearing the red cockade 
of the Revolutionists, and the passionate hopes for the 
* " The Task," bk, v. The passage may be read in class. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 333 

future of the race broadened far beyond the old national 
limits, to embrace the whole family of man. The imagi- 
nation of the youthful poets William Wordsworth, 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, all in the 
impressionable years of opening manhood when the 
Revolution began, was fired by the idea that the world 
was being made anew. They trod the earth in rapture, 
their eyes fixed upon a vision of the dawn. Looking 
back upon this time one of their number wrote : 

" Bliss was it in that Dawn to be alive, 
But to be young was very heaven." * 

A spirit of change was in the air which showed itself 
in many ways. In England it expressed itself in a more 
positive reaction against much that was hollow and 
artificial in the life and literature of an earlier time. 
The longing for something natural and genuine became 
the master passion of the new leaders of thought. Not 
only does the new love of nature and of man inspire the 
poetry of Wordsworth and of Coleridge, they are the 
leaders of a deliberate attack on the artificial poetic 
manner exemplified in the poetry of Pope. Wordsworth 
came determined to destroy the old " poetic diction " 
and set up a simpler and truer manner in its stead. 
Another expression of this longing for what is genuine 
is found in the works of the great prose writer Thomas 
Carlyle (1795-1881), who fiercely denounced all " shams," 
railed against the eighteenth century as art era of fraud 
and unbelief, and preached that men " should come back 
to reality, that they should stand upon things and not 
upon the shows of things." In these, and in many 
similar ways, the period at which we have now arrived 
was an era of revolution. In many spheres of thought and 
action the old order was changing, giving place to new. 
* Wordsworth, " The Prelude," bk. xi. 



334 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

William Wordsworth, one of the great leaders in this 
era of change, was born April 7, 1770, at Cockermouth, a 
William httle village on the river Derwent in the 
Wordsworth. county of Cumberland. His father, the 
law agent to Sir James Lowther, was descended from 
an ancient family of Yorkshire landowners, while his 
mother's ancestors had been among the landed gentry of 
Cumberland since the reign of Edward III. On both 
sides, therefore, the poet came of a family stock deeply 
rooted in the country soil, and he may well have in- 
herited from this long line of provincial ancestors that 
sympathy with the country, and with the simple in- 
cidents of country life, which is a principal element in his 
verse. Cumberland, a singularly lovely region of lake 
and mountain, was then far more remote than at present 
from the activities of the outside world. Wordsworth was 
gifted with a wonderful susceptibility to natural beauty, 
and the serenity and grandeur of his early surroundings 
entered deep into his life to become the very breath of 
his being. In his daily companionship with nature he 
seems to have felt at first a kind of primitive and un- 
reasoning rapture, to be changed in later years for a 
more profound and conscious love. His more regular 
education was obtained at Hawkeshead School, in Lan- 
cashire, and at Cambridge. But college and the fixed 
routine of college studies failed to touch his enthusiasm, 
and he is said to have occupied himself before coming 
up for his degree in reading Richardson's novels. He 
graduated in 1791, but, as may be supposed, without 
having distinguished himself. On leaving Cambridge, he 
spent some months in visiting London and elsewhere, 
finally crossing to France, where he caught the con- 
tagion of Republicanism, and was on the point of offer- 
ing himself as a leader of the Girondist party. His 
relations, alarmed for his safety, stopped his supplies, 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 335 

3 

and in 1792 lack of money compelled his return. On 
reaching England he found himself with no profession 
and without definite prospects. After three years in 
this unsettled condition he was unexpectedly placed 
beyond actual want by a timely legacy of ,£900 a year 
from his friend Raisley Calvert, who had discerned in 
Wordsworth the promise of future greatness, and who 
wished to make him free to pursue his chosen career. 
Shortly before this he had made his first public ventures 
in poetry (An Evening Walk, 1793 ; Descriptive 
Sketches, 1794). After the receipt of Calvert's legacy 
he took a cottage at Racedown in Dorsetshire with his 
devoted sister Dorothy, resolved to dedicate himself to 
poetry. From this time Wordsworth's life was of the 
most studiously simple, severe, and uneventful descrip- 
tion, an example of that " plain living and high thinking " 
in which he believed. It was lived close to nature, in 
the circle of deep home attachments, and in the society 
of a few chosen friends, but it resembled that of Milton 
in its solemn consecration to the high service of his art, 
and in its consistent nobility and loftiness of tone. 
Leaving Racedown in 1797, Wordsworth settled at 
Alfoxden, near Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, where his 
genius rapidly developed under the stimulating com- 
panionship of his friend Coleridge. Here the two poets 
worked together, and in 1798 published The Lyrical 
Ballads, a collection of poems to which each contributed. 
This work, by its deliberate departure from* the outworn 
poetic manner, marks an era in the history of English 
poetry. It is in his preface to the second edition of this 
work (published 1800) that Wordsworth made his famous 
onslaught upon the school of Pope, declaring, among 
other things, that poetry was not to be made by rules, 
but that it was " the spontaneous overflow of powerful 
feelings." After this Wordsworth -storked steadily, 




33 6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

holding to his own notions of poetry in spite of the^ 
ridicule of the critics and the neglect of the bodyo^ 4 
readers. In the winter 0^1798-99 he visited Germany. 
On his. return he settled in his native county of Cumber- 
land, living first at Grasmere (1799-1813), and finally Re- 
moving to Rydal Mount. In 1802 he married his?busi«, 
Mary Hutchinson, also a native of Cumberland Miss 
Hutchinson, like Wordsworth's beloved sister Dorothy, 
had a rare appreciation of poetry. He had t litis the de- 
votion and sympathy of two gifted women, both capable 
of entering into his finest emotions and aspirations. The 
poet, his wife, and sister thus lived in an idealfc^d 
beautiful companionship, unfortunately but too rareii 
the lives of men of genius. Wordsworth's remaining 
years were passed at Rydal Mount, except when his 
tranquiL existence was broken by short journeys on the 
Continent or elsewhere. As he advanced in life his work 
won its way in the public "%vor. He was made Poet 
Laureate in 1842, and died peacefully April 23, 1850, as 
his favorite clock struck the hour of noon. 

As a poet Wordsworth was surpassingly great within 
that somewhat restricted sphere which he has made 

Wordsworth peculiarly his own. He is deficient in a 
as a Poet. sense of humor, he possesses but little 

dramatic force or narrative skill, and he fails in a broad 
and living sympathy with the diverse passions and inter- 
ests of human life. These limitations will always tend to 
make him the poet of the appreciative few. To him, 
indeed, his own words are strikingly applicable : 



He is retired as noontide dew, 
Or fountain in a noonday grove ; 

And you must love him, ere to you 
He will seem worthy of your love." * 

* "A Poet's Epitaph." 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 337 

^^ Yet he is as truly the poet of the mysterious world we 
▼all nature, as Shakespeare is the poet of the life of man. 
He, more than all other poetfc, teaches us to enter into 
that world, and find* in it the very temple of God, in 
whTch and through which He Himself will draw close to 
upi rfte serene beauty and noble simplicity of Words- 
worth'sJife shed over his poems an indescribable and 
altogether incomparable charm. Such short lyrics as 
The Solitary Reaper, the poems to Lucy, or The Primrose 
of the Rocfc, are filled with that characteristic and magi- 
^ cal excellence which refuses to be analyzed or defined. 
Wj^teworth's sonnets are among the best in the litera- 
^^and his longer poems, such as The Excursion, while 
deficient i<i compactness and structure, are illumined by 
passages of wonderful wisdom and beauty. In spite of 
frequent lapses, Wordsworth's poetic art is of a very high 
order, and places him with the greatest poets of England. 
The Ode to Duty is a characteristic masterpiece. At 
times, as in the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality , his 
verse has an elevation and a large majesty of utterance, 
unheard in English poetry since the time of Milton. 
Matthew Arnold, himself a poetic disciple of Words- 
worth, has thus summed up the peculiar greatness of his 
master's work : " Wordsworth's poetry is great because 
of the extraordinary power with which Wordsworth feels 
the joy offered to us in nature, the joy offered to us in 
the simple primary affections and duties ; and because of 
the extraordinary power with which, in case after case, 
he shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us 
share it." * 

* Introd. to " Selections from Wordsworth." 



33% THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. 

ODE TO DUTY. 

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God ! 

Duty ! if that name thou love 
Who art a Light to guide, a Rod 
To check the erring, and reprove ; 
Thou, who art victory and law 
When empty terrors overawe ; 
From vain temptations dost set free ; 

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! 

There are who ask not if thine eye 
Be on them ; who, in love and truth, 
Where no misgiving is, rely 
Upon the genial sense of youth : 
Glad Hearts ! without reproach or blot ; 
Who do thy work, and know it not : 
Long may the kindly impulse last ! 
But Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast! 

Serene will be our days and bright, 
And happy will our nature be, 
When love is an unerring light, 
And joy its own security. 
And they a blissful course may hold 
Even now, who. not unwisely bold, 
Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
Yet find that other strength, according to their need. 

I. loving freedom, and untried ; 
No sport of every random gust, 
Yet being to myself a guide, 
Too blindly have reposed my trust : 
And oft, when in my heart was heard 
Thy timely mandate, I deferred 
The task, in smoother walks to stray ; 
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.. 

Through no disturbance of my soul, 
Or strong compunction in me wrought, 

1 supplicate for thy control ; 
But in the quietness of thought : 



SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. 339 

Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 
I feel the weight of chance-desires ; 
My hopes no more must change their name, 
I long for a repose that ever is the same. 

Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds ; 
And Fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and 
strong. 

To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
I call thee : I myself commend 
Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 
Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
The confidence of reason give ; 
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live ! 



MILTON. 

{London, 1802.) 

Milton ! thou should'st be living at this hour : 

England hath need of thee : she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 

Have forfeited their ancient English dower* 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men. 

Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : 

Thou had'st a voice whose sound was like the sea 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 

So didst thou travel on life's common way, 

In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 



34° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS, 1803. 

Seven years after his death. 

I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold, 

At thought of what I now behold : 

As vapors breathed from dungeons cold 

Strike pleasure dead, 
So sadness comes from out the mold 

Where Burns is laid. 

And have I then thy bones so near, 
And thou forbidden to appear? 
As if it were thyself that's here 

I shrink with pain ; 
And both my wishes and my fear 

Alike are vain. 

Off weight — nor press on weight ! — away 
Dark thoughts ! — they came, but not to stay 
With chastened feelings would I pay 

The tribute due 
To him, and aught that hides his clay 

From mortal view. 

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth 
He sang, his genius " glinted " forth, 
Rose like a star that touching earth, 

For so it seems, 
Doth glorify its humble birth 

With matchless beams. 

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow, 
The struggling heart, where be they now? 
Full soon the aspirant of the plow, 

The prompt, the brave, 
Slept, with the obscurest, in the low 

And silent grave. 

Well might I mourn that he was gone, 
Whose light I hailed when first it shone, 
When, breaking forth as nature's own, 

It showed my youth 
How Verse may build a princely throne 

On humble truth. 



SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. 34 1 

Alas ! where'er the current tends, 
Regret pursues and with it blends, — 
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends 

By Skiddaw seen, — 
Neighbors we were, and loving friends 

We might have been: 

True friends though diversely inclined ; 
But heart with heart, and mind with mind, 
Where the main fibres are entwined, 

Through Nature's skill, 
May even by contraries be joined 

More closely still. 

The tear will start, and let it flow; 
Thou "poor inhabitant below," 
At this dread moment — even so — 

Might we together 
Have sate and talked where gowans blow, 

Or on wild heather. 

What treasures would have then been placed 
Within my reach ; of knowledge graced 
By fancy what a rich repast ! 

But why go on ? 
Oh ! spare to sweep, thou mournful blast, 

His grave grass-grown. 

There, too, a son, his joy and pride 
(Not three weeks past the stripling died), 
Lies gathered to his father's side, 

Soul-moving sight ! 
Yet one to which is not denied 

Some sad delight. 

For he is safe, a quiet bed 

Hath early found among the dead, 

Harbored where none can be misled, 

Wronged, or distrest ; 
And surely here it may be said 

That such are blest. 



342 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

And oh for Thee, by pitying grace 
Checked ofttimes in a devious race, 
May He, who halloweth the place 

Where Man is laid, 
Receive thy Spirit in the embrace 

For which it prayed ! 

Sighing, I turned away ; but ere 
Night fell, I heard, or seemed to hear, 
Music that sorrow comes not near, 

A ritual hymn, 
Chanted in love that casts out fear 

By Seraphim. 



THE SOLITARY REAPER. 

Behold her, single in the field, 
Yon solitary Highland lass ! 
Reaping and singing by herself ; 

Stop here, or gently pass ! 
Alone she cuts, and binds the grain, 
And sings a melancholy strain ; 
Oh, Jisten ! for the vale profound 
Is overflowing with the sound. 

No nightingale did ever chant 

So sweetly to reposing bands 
Of travelers in some shady haunt, 

Among Arabian sands : 
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard 
In springtime from the cuckoo bird, 
Breaking the silence of the seas 
Among the farthest Hebrides. 

Will no one tell me what she sings ? 

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
For old, unhappy, far-off things, 

And battles long ago : 
Or is it some more humble lay, 
Familiar matter of to-day ? 
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 
That has been, and may be again ! 



SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. 343 

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang 
As if her song could have no ending ; 

I saw her singing at her work, 
And o'er the sickle bending ; — 

I listened till I had my fill, 

And when I mounted up the hill, 

The music in my heart I bore 

Long after it was heard no more. 

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 3, 1803. 

Earth has not anything to show more fair : 
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
A sight so touching in its majesty : 
This city now doth like a garment wear 
The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, 
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
Open unto the fields, and to the sky ; 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
Never did sun more beautifully steep 
In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill ; 
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! 
The river glideth at his own sweet will : 
Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ; 
And all that mighty heart is lying still f 

WRITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER, l8o2. 

O Friend ! I know not which way I must look 

For comfort, being, as I am, opprest. 

To think that now our life is only drest 

For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, 

Or groom ! We must run glittering like a brook 

In the open sunshine, or we are unblest : 

The wealthiest man among us is the best : 

No grandeur now in nature or in book 

Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, 

This is idolatry ; and these we adore : 

Plain living and high thinking are no more : 

The homely beauty of the good old cause 

Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence, 

And pure religion breathing household laws, 



344 THE 310DERX EXGLISH PERIOD. 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.— 1 772-1834. 

Wordsworth lived out his long, blameless, and devoted 
life under conditions singularly favorable to the full 
development of his genius. Freed from the pressure of 
money difficulties, and enabled to live simply amid the 
loveliest of natural surroundings, happy in his home and 
in his friends, and blessed with health and energy, he 
has left us a shining example of a serene and truly 
successful life. The story of Coleridge, Wordsworth's 
friend and fellow poet, is tragically different. It is the 
story of a man of rare and varied gifts, who, from what- 
ever cause, could not, or did not. put forth his powers to 
the full. Hazlitt has condensed this into one epigram- 
matic sentence:. "To the man had been given in high 
measure the seeds of noble endowment, but to unfold 
them had been forbidden him." 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest of a large 
family, was the son of the vicar and schoolmaster at the 
little town of-Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire. Left an 
orphan at his ninth year, he was admitted to the Charity 
School at Christ's Hospital, London, and began the 
unequal fight of life. Here he met Charles Lamb, who 
has recorded some of their joint experiences in one of 
his Essays of Elia* From the first, Coleridge seems to 
have half lived in a dream-world, created by " the shaping 
spirit of imagination." which, as he says, "nature gave 
me at my birth." f As a little child he wandered over 
the Devonshire fields, slashing the tops off weeds and 
nettles in the character of one of the " Seven Champions 
of Christendom": and in school at London he would lie 
for hours on the roof, gazing after the drifting clouds 
while his schoolfellows played football in the court 

*'' Recollections of Christ's Church Hospital." 
f Coleridge's " Dejection ; an Ode." 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 345 

below, or, in the midst of the crowded Strand, he would 
fancy himself Leander swimming the Hellespont. A 
hopelessly erratic, inconsequent element runs through 
his whole life, depriving it of unity and steady purpose. 
At nineteen he went to Cambridge and furnished his 
rooms with no thought, of his inability to pay the uphol- 
sterers; then, under the pressure of a comparatively 
trifling debt, he gave up all his prospects, fled to London, 
and enlisted in the Dragoons. He returned again to 
Cambridge, but left in 1794 without taking a degree. 
Visiting Oxford in this year, he met the youthful Southey, 
in whom he found a kindred spirit. Both were feeling 
that impulse from the French Revolution which was 
agitating Europe. They agreed that human society 
should be reconstructed, and decided to begin the reform 
by establishing an ideal community in the wilds of 
America. The new form of government was to be called 
a Pantisocracy, or the government by all, and the citizens 
were to combine farming and literature. The bent of 
the two poets at this time is shown by the subjects of 
their work. They composed together a poem on The 
Fall of Robespierre, and Southey's Wat Tyler (1794) is 
charged with the revolutionary spirit. In 1795 Coleridge 
married Sarah Fricker, whose sister Edith became the wife 
of Southey a few weeks later. The pantisocratic scheme 
was given up for lack of funds, and Coleridge and his 
wife settled at Clevedon, on the Bristol Channel. It 
was about two years after this that he met Words- 
worth at Alfoxden, contributing The Ancient Mariner to 
their joint venture, the Lyrical Ballads. In 1798 Cole- 
ridge left for Germany, where he remained about two 
years, receiving a fresh and powerful stimulus from the 
new intellectual and literary life on which that nation 
had just entered. An immediate result of this visit was 
a translation of Schiller's JVallenslein, but its effect on 



346 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Coleridge's tone of thought was profound and lasting, 
Through him, and afterwards through Thomas Carlyle, 
the influence of German literature began for the first 
time to tell on that of England. 

Coleridge returned to England in 1800. He gave up 
an excellent opening in journalism to lead a life of quiet- 
ness and study, settling near Keswick, in Cumberland, a 
district to which his friend Wordsworth had already 
retreated. Here he was full of great plans; life seemed 
growing easier, but his work was interrupted by illness, 
and to quiet the torments of gout and neuralgia, he 
unhappily resorted to a quack specific containing opium. 

He thus gradually came under the power of this terri- 
ble drug, and for the next fifteen years he battled with a 
habit which was clouding his splendid intellect, and 
benumbing his energies and his will. To follow this 
melancholy story is like watching the efforts of some 
hurt creature struggling in the toils. Estranged from 
his family, he became, as he writes, " the most miserable 
of men, having a home and yet homeless." Finally, 
under the care of a Mr. Gilman, a surgeon, at Highgate, 
London, he conquered his fatal habit. 

Carlyle, who visited him at Mr. Gilman's, says that he 
" gave you the idea of a life that had been full of suffer- 
ings ; a life heavy laden, half vanquished, still swimming 
painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilder- 
ment."* His health was shattered, and some exquisite 
poems written at this time show a quiet and hopeless 
resignation more pathetic than any outburst of despair. 
Here he died, after a lingering illness, July 25, 1834. 

If Wordsworth's was a life lived out in the still, high 
altitudes of thought, if it was heroic in its simplicity 
and austerity, it has in it a certain chill that seems to 
come from its very loftiness and isolation. But Coleridge, 

*Carlyle's " Life of Sterling." 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERLDGE. 347 

with his rare and lovely nature, is perpetually hurting 
himself against the rough places of an uncompromising 
world. He is struggling all his life with the crowd, 
stumbling, and beaten, and disheartened, and by the 
mysterious law of human suffering, he gains a tenderness 
that we miss in Wordsworth in spite of all his successes. 
If Wordsworth has the stimulating vigor of the stoic, 
Coleridge has the great compassion of the Christian. 

For in spite of his inward conviction that he had 
failed, there is, especially in his later poems, the stillness 
of a great calm. In Henry Crabbe Robinson's Diary 
there is this significant passage : " Last night he (Cole- 
ridge) concluded his fine development of the Prince of 
Denmark by an eloquent statement of the moral of the 
play. ' Action,' he said, ' is the end of all ; no intellect, 
however grand, is valuable if it draw us from action and 
lead us to think and think until the time for action is 
passed by and we can do nothing.' Somebody said to 
me, ' This is a satire on himself.' ' No,' said I, ' it is 
an elegy.' " 

Much of Coleridge's work is, like his life, fragmentary 
and incomplete; yet its range and variety bear witness 
to the broad scope and many-sided vigor of Coleridge's 
his genius. He was one of the great Eng- Work - 
lish talkers. On every hand we find testimony to his 
personal influence upon his distinguished contemporaries. 
As a converser he held somewhat the same place as that 
occupied by Samuel Johnson immediately before, and by 
Thomas Babington Macaulay immediately after him. 

In Coleridge's full life the writing of poetry was but 
one interest, even perhaps a somewhat incidental one. 
His discursive energy spent itself in phi- As Philoso . 
losophy, in theology, in political journalism, pher and Critic - 
and in criticism. • He strove to infuse into the common 
.sense and materialistic English philosophy, the more 



34$ THE MODERX ENGLISH PERIOD. 

ideal and spiritual character of contemporary German 
thought. He was the most profound and philosophic 
critic of his time. His Biograpliia Literaria contains an 
exposition of Wordsworth's poetic principles, greatly 
superior to that put forth by that poet himself. His 
lectures on Shakespeare began an era in the history of 
English Shakesperean criticism. 

Coleridge left but little poetry. Much of this is 
scrappy and unfinished, and no small proportion is ob- 
viously inferior in quality to his best poetic 

As Poet. , tt i - . , i- 

work, rie seems to nave required peculiar 
conditions for poetic composition ; inspiration came to 
him suddenly, in mysterious gusts, but often before a 
poem was finished it as suddenly left him, apparently as 
powerless as an ordinary mortal to complete what none 
but him could have begun. Thus, after writing the 
second part of CJiristabcl, a poem born of the very breath 
of inspiration, he waited vainly until the end of his life 
for the return of the creative mood. He tells us that 
when writing 'Kubla Khan, a poem which came to him in 
his sleep as a kind of vision, he was interrupted " by a 
person on business from Porlock," and that on his return 
he was unable to complete it. He concludes with the 
pathetically characteristic words : " The author has fre- 
quently proposed to finish for himself what had been 
originally, as it were, given to him. Avpiov ddiov atfoj; 
but the to-morrow is yet to come." 

We should rather attribute the smallness and in- 
completeness of his poetic work to some defect of 
character or purpose, some outside limitation which 
clogged the free exercise of a great gift, than regard it 
as the result of any flaw in the quality of the gift itself. 
His best works have a charm of musical utterance that 
easily places him with the supreme lyric poets of the 
literature. His descriptions of nature are often con- 






INTRODUCTION TO THE ANCIENT MARINER. 349 

densed and vivid, like those of Dante, showing the power 
to enter into the spirit of a scene and reproduce it with 
a few quick strokes. Through Christabel and The 
Ancient Mariner, he is peculiarly the poet of the super- 
natural. Over this region Coleridge is master, and it may- 
be said of him as of Shakespeare in his wider range, 

" Within that circle none durst walk but he." * 

Coleridge's place as a poet is far from resting entirely 
on his poems on the supernatural. His odes France and 
Dejection, and such short lyrics as Youth and Age and 
Complaint and Reply, are of the highest rank, while his 
Wallenstein has been pronounced the most successful 
poetic translation in the literature. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE ANCIENT MARINER. 

The circumstances under which The Ancient Mariner 
was composed, and the general object which The Sources 
Coleridge had in mind, are to be gathered ofthePoem - 
from the following passages. Wordsworth writes 
regarding it : 

" In reference to this poem, I will here mention one of the most 
noticeable facts in my own poetic history, and that of Mr. Coleridge. 
In the autumn of 1797, he, my sister, and myself started from Alfoxden 
pretty late in the afternoon, with a view to visit Linton and the Valley 
of Stones near to it ; and as our united funds were very small, we 
agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a poem to be sent 
to the New Mo7ithly Magazine set up by Phillips the bookseller, and 
edited by Dr. Aiken. Accordingly, we set off, and proceeded along 
the Quantock Hills, towards Watchet, and in the course of this walk 
was planned the poem of ' The Ancient Mariner,' founded on a dream, 
as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr. Cruikshank. Much the 
greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention ; but certain 
parts I suggested ; for example, some crime was to be committed 
which should bring upon the Old Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards 
delighted to call him, the spectral persecution, as a consequence of 
* Prologue to " The Tempest," Dryden. 



35° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

that crime and his own wanderings. I had been reading in Shel- 
vockes Voyages, a day or two before, that while doubling Cape Horn 
they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort of sea- 
fowl, some extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet.* ' Suppose,' 
said I, 'you represent him as having killed one of these birds on en- 
tering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take 
upon them to avenge the crime.' The incident was thought fit for 
the purpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested the naviga- 
tion of the ship by the dead men, but do not recollect that I had any- 
thing more to do with the scheme of the poem. The gloss with 
which it was subsequently accompanied was not thought of by either 
of us at the time, at least not a hint of it was given to me, and I have 
no doubt it was a gratuitous afterthought. We began the composi- 
tion together, on that (to me) memorable evening: I furnished two or 
three lines at the beginning of the poem, in particular : 

1 And listened like a three years' child : 
The Mariner had his will.' 

These trifling contributions, all but one, Mr. C. has, with unnecessary 
scrupulosity, recorded, slipped out of his mind, as well they might. 
As we endeavored to proceed conjointly (I speak of the same evening), 
our respective manners proved so widely different, that it would have 
been quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from an 
undertaking upon which I could only have been a clog. We re- 
turned after a few days from a delightful tour, of which I have many 
pleasant, and some of them droll enough, recollections. We returned 
by Duburton to Alfoxden. ' The Ancient Mariner ' grew and grew, 
till it became too important for our first object, which was limited to 

* Hales says, " The passage in Shelvocke, which is most to the point, is 
this : describing his voyage between ' the streights of le Mair ' and the 
coast of Chili, he says they saw no fish, ' nor one sea bird, except a discon- 
solate black albitross, who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us 
as if he had lost himself, till Hatley (my second captain), observing in one of 
his melancholy fits that this bird was always hovering near us, imagined from 
his color that it might be some ill omen. That which, I suppose, induced 
him the more to encourage his superstition, was the continued series of con- 
trary tempestuous winds, which had oppressed us ever since we had got into 
this sea. But be that as it would, he, after some fruitless attempts, at length 
shot the albatross, not doubting (perhaps) that we shouid have a fair wind 
after it.' " — " Shelvocke's Voyage Round the World by the Way of the 
Great South Sea," etc., London, 1726. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ANCIENT MARINER. 35 1 

our expectation of five pounds ; and we began to think of a volume, 
which was to consist, as Mr. Coleridge has told the world, of poems 
chiefly on supernatural subjects, taken from common life, but looked 
at, as much as might be, through an imaginative medium. Accord- 
ingly I wrote ' The Idiot Boy,' ' Her Eyes are Wild,' etc., and, ' We 
are Seven,' 'The Thorn,' and some others." * 

Coleridge says, in speaking of the origin of the 
Lyrical Ballads : 

" During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbors, 
our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of po- 
etry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful 
adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest 
of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination. The sudden charm 
which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset dif- 
fused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the 
practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. 
The thought suggested itself — to which of us I do not recollect — that 
a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the 
incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural ; and the 
excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections 
by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany 
such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they 
have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delu- 
sion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. 
For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life ; 
the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every 
village and its vicinity where there is a meditative and feeling mind to 
seek after them, or to notice them when they present themselves. 

" In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads in which 
it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed to persons and 
characters supernatural, or at least romantic ; yet so as to transfer 
from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth 
sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing sus- 
pension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. 
Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself, as his 
object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to ex- 
cite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's 
attention to the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness 
and the wonders of the world before us ; an inexhaustible treasure, 

* " Memoirs of Wm. Wordsworth," by Christopher Wordsworth, D.D. 



35 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solici- 
tude, we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that 
neither feel nor understand. With this in view, I wrote the • Ancient 
Mariner,' etc." * 

The Ancient Mariner is written in general imitation of 
the early ballad style, and, as already pointed out, is con- 
The Revival of nec ted with the revival of interest in ballad 
Baiiad Poetry. poetry . Not only is it a ballad in form ; it is 
filled with those ghostly and mysterious elements which, 
in a cruder form, enter so largely into the folk-song and 
legend of primitive superstitions. This fondness for a 
shudder was characteristic of the romantic movement. 
The ghostly tales of " Monk " Lewis, as he was called, the 
thrilling mysteries of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels {The Mys- 
teries of Udolpho, 1794), or the extravagancies of Horace 
Walpole's Castle of Otranto (1764), are examples of this 
blood-curdling literature. In such works we have what 
Theodore Watts calls " the Renaissance of Wonder." 

Coleridge's But in The Ancient Mariner, as in Chris- 
thllu^lmatf tabel, the ghostly and the horrible lose much 
ural " of that gross and physical terror which the 

ordinary literature of superstition is content with calling 
forth. Coleridge's more subtle art brings us into a twilight 
and debatable region, which seems to hover between the 
unseen and the seen, the conjectural and the real. He in- 
vests us with nameless terrors, as when we fear to turn 
because of a fiendish something that treads behind. This 
difference between Coleridge and the old balladists re- 
sembles that great gulf which separates such gruesome 
stories as Frankenstein, or the effective horrors of Edgar 
Poe, from the spiritual suggestiveness and metaphysical 
refinements of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Several of the changes made by Coleridge in the first 
version of the poem (1798) seem intended to remove all 

* " Biog. Lit.," chap. xiv. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE ANCIENT MARINER. 353 

traces of the simply horrible. Thus the following lines, 
describing Death, in the spectre bark, were omitted after 
the first edition : 

" His bones were black with many a crack, 
All black and bare, I ween ; 
Jet black and bare save where with rust 
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust, 
They're patched with purple and green. 

A gust of wind sterte up behind 

And whistled thro' his bones ; 

Thro' the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth 

Half whistles and half groans." 

We are also to observe the skill with which this super- 
natural element is woven into a narrative of possible inci- 
dents, so realistically told as fully to persuade us of their 
truth. By such means Coleridge has carried out his pro- 
fessed object, and almost deluded us into a temporary 
belief in the whole story. 

Coleridge has thus created a new thing out of the 
crude materials of vulgar superstition, but in doing this 
he has employed other agencies than those 

I J j T t • \ j ,j The Moral Sig- 

already named. In his shadowy world, as nificance of the 
in that of Hawthorne, we are haunted by 
the continual suggestion of some underlying moral sig- 
nificance. How far we should attempt to confine the 
spiritual suggestiveness of The Ancient Mariner within 
the limits of a set moral is open to question. To do this 
may seem to some like taking the poem out of its twi- 
light atmosphere to drag it into the light of common 
day. Yet we can hardly fail to feel that Coleridge has 
here written for us the great poem of Charity, that 
" very bond of peace and of all virtues " which should 
bind together all created things. It is against this law 
of love that the mariner sins. He wantonly kills a 



354 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

creature that has trusted him, that has loved him, that 
has partaken of the sailors' food and come at their call. 
The necessary penalty for this breach in the fellowship 
of living things, is an exclusion from that fellowship. 
His " soul" is condemned to dwell alone, until by his 
compassion for the " happy living things " about the 
ship, — by the renewal of that love against which he has 
sinned, — he takes the first step towards his return into 
the great brotherhood of animate creation. For hate, ox 
wanton cruelty, is the estranging power which, by an 
inevitable law, forces a man into spiritual exile, just as 
love is the uniting power which draws together all living 
things. The very power to pray depends upon our 
dwelling in this mystic fellowship of charity, and in the 
poem praying and loving are constantly associated. (See 
verses 14 and 15 in part iv., also 22 and 23 in part vii.) 

The underlying meaning in this becomes apparent in 
that verse, which gives us the completest statement of 
the thought of the poem : 

" He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all." 

The .last couplet gives us the reason for the declaration 
contained in the first. Not only is love the bond be- 
tween all created things — it is the bond also between the 
Creator and his creatures. It is the mysterious, under- 
lying principle of creation because it is the essence of its 
Creator, and an outcast through his violation of love 
here is no longer able to approach the source of all love. 
For the loneliness of the mariner does not consist in his 
loss of human sympathy merely ; he seems to drift on 
that strange sea of isolation almost beyond the power of 
the Universal Love : 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 355 

" So lonely 'twas that God himself 
Scarce seemed there to be." 

Looked at from this aspect, The Ancient Mariner be- 
comes the profoundest and perhaps most beautiful ex- 
pression of that feeling of sympathy for all living things, 
which we have found uttering itself with increasing dis- 
tinctness in latter eighteenth century literature. 

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 

PART I. 

An ancient Mariner it is an ancient Mariner, 

meeteth three gal- ... . , , 

lants bidden to a And he stoppeth one of three. 

defainefh^ne. and " By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, 



Now wherefore stopp'st thou me 



" The bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 
And I am next of kin ; 
The guests are met, the feast is set : 
May'st hear the merry din." 

He holds him with his skinny hand, 
" There was a ship," quoth he. 
" Hold off ! unhand me, graybeard loon." 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 

b£JE£ftf£ He holds him with his glittering eye- 
eye of the old sea- The Wedding-guest stood still, 

faring man, and con- . , .. ... , , , ., , 

strained to hear his And listens like a three years child : 
tale - The Mariner hath his will. 

The Wedding-guest sat on a stone : 
He cannot choose but hear; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
- The bright-eyed Mariner : — 

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, 

Merrily did we drop 

Below the kirk, below the hill, 

Below the lighthouse top. 



356 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



The Wedding-guest 
heareth the bridal 
music; but the Mari- 
ner continueth his 
tale. 



The ship drawn by 
a storm towards the 
south pole. 



The Mariner tells The sun came up upon the left, 

how the ship sailed r r 

southward with a Out of the sea came he ! 

weather," till "St And he shone bright, and on the right 

reached the line. Went down intQ the S£a _ 

Higher and higher every clay, 

Till over the mast at noon — 

The Wedding-guest here beat his breast, 

For he heard the loud bassoon. 

The bride hath paced into the hall, 
Red as a rose is she ; 
Nodding their heads before her goes 
The merry minstrelsy. 

The Wedding-guest he beat his breast, 
Yet he cannot choose but hear; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed Mariner : — 

And now the storm-blast came, and he 
Was tyrannous and strong ; 
He struck with his o'ertaking wings, 
And chased us south along. 

. With sloping masts and dipping prow, 
As who pursued with yell and blow 
Still treads the shadow of his foe, 
And forward bends his head, 

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 
And southward aye we fled. 

And now there came both mist and snow, 
And it grew wondrous cold ; 
And ice, mast high, came floating by, 
As green as emerald. 

The land of ice, and And through the drifts, the snowy clifts 

of fearful sounds, - 

where no living thing Did send a dismal sheen ; 

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken — 
The ice was all between. 

The ice was here, the ice was there, 
The ice was all around ; 

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 
' Like noises in a swound ! 



25 



30 



35 



40 



45 






5o 



55 



60 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 



357 



Till a great sea-bird, At length did cross an Albatross, 

called the Albatross, ° 

came through the Thorough the fog it came ; 

receTved g 'with great As if it had been a Christian soul 

joy and hospitality. We hailed j t Jn God ^ name> 



65 



It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
And round and round it flew. 
The ice did split with a thunder-fit; 
The helmsman steered us through ! 



70 



And lo ! the Alba- And a good south wind sprung up behind ; 

tross proveth a bird ° ,.,,,, 

of good omen, and The Albatross did follow, 

followeth the ship » , , <■ /• 1 1 

as it returned north- And every day, for food or play, 

ward through fog 
and floating ice. 



Came to the mariner's hollo ! 



In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 

It perched for vespers nine ; 

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 

Glimmered the white moonshine. 



75 



The ancient Mariner « q oc j save t h ee , ancient Mariner, 

inhospitably killeth ' 

the pious bird of From the fiends that plague thee thus ! — 

Why look'st thou so ? " — With my cross-bow 
I shot the Albatross. 



good omen. 



80 



PART II. 

The sun now rose upon the right ; 
Out of the sea came he, 
Still hid in mist, and on the left 
Went down into the sea. 



85 



And the good south wind still blew behind, 
But no sweet bird did follow, * 

Nor any day, for food or play, 
Came to the mariner's hollo ! 



90 



His shipmates cry 
out against the an- 
cient Mariner, for 
killing the bird of 
good luck. 



And I had done a hellish thing, 

And it would work 'em woe : 

For all averred I had killed the bird 

That made the breeze to blow. 

Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay, 

That made the breeze to blow. 



95 



358 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



But when the fog 
cleared off, they jus- 
tify the same, and 
thus make them- 
selves accomplices in 
the crime. 



The fair breeze con- 
tinues; the ship en- 
ters the Pacific Ocean 
and sails northward, 
even till it reaches 
the line. 



Nor dim, nor- red, like God's own head, 

The glorious sun uprist : 

Then all averred I had killed the bird 

That brought the fog and mist. 

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, 

That bring the fog and mist. 

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 

The furrow followed free ; 

We were the first that ever burst 

Into that silent sea. 



ioo 



105 



And the Albatross 
begins to be avenged. 



Sddlnl^becSnSff 11 Down dro P t the breeze, the sails dropt. down, 
'Twas sad as sad could be ; 
And we did speak only to break 
The silence of the sea ! 

All in a hot and copper sky, 
The bloody sun, at noon, 
Right up above the mast did stand, 
No bigger than the moon. 

Day after day, day after day, 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

Water, water, everywhere, 
And all the boards did shrink ; 
Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink. 

The very deep did rot : O Christ ! 
That ever this should be ! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea. 

About, about, in reel and rout 
The death fires danced at night ; 
The water, like a witch's oils, 
Burned green and blue, and white. 

And some in dreams assured were 
Of the spirit that plagued us so ; 
Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
From the land of mist and snow. 



no 



ii5 



120 



125 



A spirit had followed 
them; one of the in- 
visible inhabitants of 
this planet, neither 
departed souls nor 
angels ; concerning 
whom the learned 
Jew Josephus, and 
the Platonic Con- 
stantinopolitan 
Michael Psellus, may 



I30 



be consulted. They 
are very numerous, 
and there is no cli- 
mate or element with- 
out one or more. 

The shipmates in 
their sore distress 
would fain throw the 
whole guilt on the 
ancient Mariner; in 
sign whereof they 
hang the dead sea- 
bird round his neck. 



THE A NCI EN T MA RINER. 359 

And every tongue, through utter drought, 135 

Was withered at the root ; 

We could not speak, no more than if 

We had been choked with soot. 

Ah ! well a day ! what evil looks 

Had I from old and young ! 140 

Instead of the cross, the Albatross 

About my neck was hung. 



The ancient Mariner 
beholdeth a sign in 
the element afar off. 



PART III. 

There passed a weary time. Each throat 

Was parched, and glazed each eye, 

A weary time ! a weary time! 

How glazed each weary eye, 

When looking westward, I beheld 

A something in the sky. 

At first it seemed a little speck, 
And then it seemed a mist : 
It moved and moved, and took at last 
A certain shape, I wist. 

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist ! 
And still it neared and neared : 
As if it dodged a water-sprite, 
It plunged, and tacked, and veered. 

At its nearer ap- With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, 

proach, it seemeth 

to him to be a ship, We could nor laugh nor wail ; 
he d f£?hl£?,S Through utter drought all dumb we stood ! 

tS. the b ° nds ° f l bit m y arm > l sucked the blood, 
And cried, A sail ! a sail ! 

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, 
Agape they heard me call : 
Gramercy ! they for joy did grin, 
And all at once their breath drew in, 
As they were drinking all. 



145 



5o 



*55 



160 



A flash of joy 



I6 5 



And horror follows ; 
for can it be a ship 
that comes onward 
without wind or tide? 



See ! see ! (I cried) she tacks no more ! 
Hither to work us weal ; 
Without a breeze, without a tide, 
She steadies with upright keel ! 



170 



3 6 ° 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



It seemeth to him 
but the skeleton of a 
ship. 



And its ribs are seen 
as bars on the face of 
the setting sun. The 
spectre-woman and 
her death-mate, and 
no other on board 
the skeleton ship. 



The western .wave was all a-flame, 

The day was well-nigh done ! 

Almost upon the western wave 

Rested the broad bright sun ; 

When that strange shape drove suddenly 

Betwixt us and the sun. 

And straight the sun was flecked with bars, 
(Heaven's Mother send us grace !) 
As if through a dungeon grate he peered 
With broad and burning face. 

Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) 
How fast she nears and nears ! 
Are those her sails that glance in the sun, 
Like restless gossameres ! 

Are those her ribs through which the sun 
Did peer, as through a grate ! 
And is that Woman all her crew? 
Is that a Death ? and are there two ? 
Is Death that woman's mate ? 



175 



1 80 



Like 
crew! 



vessel, like Her lips were red, her looks were free, 
Her locks were yellow as gold : 
Her skin was as white as leprosy, 
The night-mare Life-in-Death was she, 
Who thicks man's blood with cold. 



•5 



190 



Death and Life-in- The naked hulk alongside came, 195 

Death have diced . , . . .. ,. 

for the ship's crew, And the twain were casting dice ; 

"nnc5x e th^ancS " The game is done ! I've won, I've won ! " 

Manner. Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 

No twilight within The sun's rim dips : the stars rush out : 

the courts of the sun. . , . . , A , ■, -, 

At one stride comes the dark ; 200 

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, 
Off shot the spectre-bark. 

We listened and looked sideways up ! 

Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 

My life-blood seemed to sip ! 205 

The stars were dim, and thick the night, 

The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white ; 

From the sails the dew did drip — 



At the rising of the 
moon. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 



361 



Till clomb above the eastern bar 

The horned moon, with one bright star 

Within the nether tip. 

One after another. One after one, by the star-dogged moon, 
Too quick for groan or sigh, 
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, 
And cursed me with his eye. 

His shipmates drop Four times fifty living men, 

down dead. , ° , 

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan) 
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, 
They dropped down one by one. 

But Life-in-Death The souls did from their bodies fly, — 

begins her work on . , 

the ancient Mariner. They fled to bllSS Or WOe ! 

And every soul, it passed me by, 
Like the whizz of my cross-bow ! 



PART IV. 

" I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! 

I fear thy skinny hand ! 

And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 

As is the ribbed sea-sand. 

I fear thee and thy glittering eye, 
And thy skinny hand so brown." — 
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-guest ! 
This body dropt not down. 

Alone, alone, all, all alone, 

Alone on a wide, wide sea ! 

And never a saint took pity on 

My soul in agony. % 



210 



215 



220 



The Wedding-guest 
feareth that a spirit 
is talking to him. 



225 



But the ancient Mar- 
iner assureth him of 
his bodily life, and 
proceedeth to relate 
his horrible penance. 



23O 



235 



rie despiseth the The many men, so beautiful ! 

creatures of the . ' , 

calm. And they all dead did he : 

And a thousand thousand slimy things 
Lived on ; and so did I. 



And envieth that I looked upon the rotting sea, 

they should live and 

so many lie dead. And drew my eyes away ; 

I looked upon the rotting deck, 
And there the dead men lay. 



240 



362 



THE MODERN EXGLISH PERIOD. 



I looked to heaven, and tried to pray 
But or ever a prayer had gusht, 
A wicked whisper came, and made 
My heart as dry as dust. 

I closed my ljds, and kept them close, 

And the balls like pulses beat ; 

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky 

Lay like a load on my weary eye, 

And the dead were at my feet. 

But the curse liveth The cold sweat melted from their limbs, 

for nun in the eye of 

the dead men. Nor rot nor reek did they : 

The look with which they looked on me 
Had never passed away. 

An orphan's curse would drag to hell 

A spirit from on high ; 

But oh ! more horrible than that 

Is the curse in a dead man's eye ! 

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, 

And yet I could not die. 

The moving moon went up the sky, 
And nowhere did abide : 
Softly she was going up, 
And a star or two beside — 

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, 

Like April hoar-frost spread ; 

But where the ship's huge shadow lay, 

The charmed water burnt alway 

A still and awful red. 



245 



250 



255 



260 



In his loneliness and 
fixedness he yearn- 
eth towards the jour- 
neying moon, and 
the stars that still 
sojourn, yet still 
move onward ; and 
everywhere the blue 
sky belongs to them, 
and is their ap- 
pointed rest, and 
their native country, 
and their own natu- 
ral homes, which 
they enter unan- 
nounced, as lords 
that are certainty ex- 
pected, and yet there 
is a silent joy at their 
arrival. 



265 



270 



By the light of the 
moon he beholdeth 
God's creatures of 
the great calm. 



Beyond the shadow of the ship 

I watched the water-snakes : 

They moved in tracks of shining white, 

And when they reared, the elfish light 

Fell off in hoary flakes. 

Within the shadow of the ship 

I watched their rich attire : 

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, 

They coiled and swam ; and every track 

Was a flash of golden fire. 



275 



280 






THE ANCIENT MARINER. 



363 



Their beauty 
their happiness. 



and 



He blesseth them in 
his heart. 



O happy living things ! no tongue 

Their beauty might declare : 

A spring of love gushed from my heart, 

And I blessed them unaware : 

Sure my kind saint took pity on me, 

And I blessed them unaware. 



The spell begins to xhe selfsame moment I could pray : 

break. * J 

And from my neck so free 
The Albatross fell off, and sank 
Like lead into the sea. 



285 



290 



PART V. 

sleep ! it is a gentle thing, 
Beloved from pole to pole ! 

To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven, 
That slid into my soul. 

By grace of the The silly buckets on the deck, 

holy Mother, the . 

ancient Mariner is That had so long remained, 

refreshed with rain, j ^^ ^ they were fiHed ^^ ^ 

When I awoke, it rained. 

My lips were wet, my throat was cold, 
My garments all were dank ; 
Sure I had drunken in my dreams, 
And still my body drank. 

1 moved, and could not feel my limbs : 
I was so light — almost 

I thought that I had died in sleep, 
And was a blessed ghost. 

And soon I heard a roaring wind : 
It did not come anear ; 
But with its sound it shook the sails, 
That were so thin and sere. 

The upper air burst into life ! 
And a hundred fire-flags sheen, 
To and fro they were hurried about ! 
And to and fro, and in and out, 
The wan stars danced between. 



295 



He heareth sounds 
and seeth strange 
sights and commo- 
tions in the sky and 
the element. 



300 



305 



3IO 



315 



3 6 4 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

And the coming wind did roar more loud, 

And the sails did sigh like sedge : 

And the rain poured down from one black cloud: 320 

The moon was at its edge. 

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 

The moon was at its side : 

Like waters shot from some high crag, 

The lightning fell with never a jag, 325 

A river steep and wide. 

The bodies of the The loud wind never reached the ship, 

ships crew are in- . 

spired, and the ship Yet now the ship moved Oil ! 

Beneath the lightning and the moon 

The dead men gave a groan. 330 

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ; 
It had been strange, even in a dream, 
To have seen those dead men rise. 

The helmsman steered ; the ship moved on ; 335 

Yet never a breeze up blew ; 

The mariners all gan work the ropes, 

Where they were wont to do ; 

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 

We were a ghastly crew. 340 

The body of my brother's son 
Stood by me knee to knee : 
The body and I pulled at one rope, 
But he said nought to me. 

but not by the souls " I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! " ' 345 

of the men, nor by , ___ 

demons of earth Be calm thou W edding-guest ! 

a" Sld^op o? 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, 

angelic spirits, sent ^yhich to their corses came again, 

down by the invoca- & ' 

tion of the guardian But a tl'OOD of spirits blest : 
saint. r r 

For when it dawned — they dropped their arms, 350 
And cluster'd round the mast ; 
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, 
And from their bodies passed. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 

Around, around, flew each sweet sound, 
Then darted to the sun ; 
Slowly the sounds came back again, 
Now mixed, now one by one. 

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 
I heard the skylark sing ; 
Sometimes all little birds that are, 
How they seemed to fill the sea and air 
With their sweet jargoning ! 

And now 'twas like all instruments, 
Now like a lonely flute ; 
And now it is an angel's song, 
That makes the heavens be mute. 



365 
355 



360 



365 



The lonesome spirit 
from the south pole 
carries on the ship as 
far as the line, in 
obedience to the an- 
gelic troop, but still 
requireth vengeance. 



It ceased ; yet still the sails made on 

A pleasant noise till noon, 

A noise like of a hidden brook 

In the leafy month of June, 370 

That to the sleeping woods all night 

Singeth a quiet tune. 

Till noon we quietly sailed on, 

Yet never a breeze did breathe : 

Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 375 

Moved onward from beneath. 

Under the keel nine fathom deep, 

From the land of mist and snow, 

The spirit slid : and it was he 

That made the ship to go. * 380 

The sails at noon left off their tune, 

And the ship stood still also. 

The sun right up above the mast, 

Had fixed her to the ocean : 

But in a minute she 'gan stir, 385 

With a short uneasy motion — 

Backwards and forwards half her length 

With a short uneasy motion. 



3 66 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



The Polar Spirit's 
fellow-demons, the 
invisible inhabit- 
ants of the element, 
take part in his 
wrong ; and two of 
them relate, one to 
the other, that pen- 
ance long and heavy 
for the ancient Mari- 
ner hath been ac- 
corded to the Polar 
Spirit, who returneth 
southward. 



Then like pawing- horse let go, 

She made a sudden bound : 390 

It flung the blood into my head, 

And I fell down in a swound. 

How long in that same fit I lay, 

I have not to declare ; 

But ere my living life returned, 395 

I heard, and in my soul discerned, 

Two voices in the air. 

" Is it he ? " quoth one, " Is this the man ? 

By Him who died on the cross, 

With his cruel bow he laid full low 400 

The harmless Albatross. 

" The spirit who bideth by himself 

In the land of mist and snow, 

He loved the bird that loved the man 

Who shot him with his bow." 405 

The other was a softer voice, 

As soft as honey-dew : 

Quoth he, " The man hath penance done, 

A'nd penance more will do." 



PART VI. 

First Voice. 
But tell me, tell me ! speak again, 
Thy soft response renewing — 
What makes that ship drive on so fast ? 
What is the ocean doing? 

Second Voice. 
Still as a slave before his lord, 
The ocean hath no blast ; 
His great bright eye most silently 
Up to the moon is cast — 

If he may know which way to go ; 
For she guides him smooth or grim. 
See, brother, see! how graciously 
She looketh down on him. 



410 



415 



420 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 



367 



The Mariner hath 
been cast into a 
trance ; for the an- 
gelic power causeth 
the vessel to drive 
northward faster 

than human life 
could endure. 



First Voice. 
But why drives on that ship so fast, 
Without or wave or wind ? 

Second Voice. 
The air is cut away before, 
And closes from behind. 

Fly, brother, fly ! more high, more high ! 
Or we shall be belated : 
For slow and slow that ship will go, 
When the Mariner's trance is abated. 



425 



The supernatural 
motion is retarded ; 
the Mariner awakes, 
and his penance be- 
gins anew. 



I woke, and we were sailing on 

As in a gentle weather. 

'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high 

The dead men stood together. 

All stood together on the deck, 
For a charnal dungeon fitter ; 
All fixed on me their stony eyes, 
That in the moon did glitter. 

The pang, the curse, with which they died, 
Had never passed away ; 
I could not draw my eyes from theirs, 
Nor turn them up to pray. 



430 



435 



440 



The curse is finally And now this spell was snapt- 

expiated. . 

I viewed the ocean green, 



-once more 



And looked far forth, yet little saw 
Of what had else been seen — 

Like one that on a lonesome road 
Doth walk in fear and dread, 
And having turned round walks on, 
And turns no more his head ; 
Because he knows a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread. 



445 



450 



But soon there breathed a wind on me, 
Nor sound nor motion made ; 
Its path was not upon the sea, 
In ripple or in shade. 



455 



3 68 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek 
Like a meadow gale of spring — 
It mingled strangely with my fears, 
Yet it felt like a welcoming. 

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 
Yet she sailed softly too ; 
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — 
On me alone it blew. 



460 



And the ancient Oh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed 
S^SSS The lighthouse top I see ? 

Is this the hill? is this the kirk ? 

Is this mine own countree ? 



465 



We drifted o'er the harbor bar, 
And I with sobs did pray — 
Oh, let me be awake, my God ! 
Or let me sleep alway. 



470 



The harbour bay was clear as glass, 
So smoothly it was strewn ! 
And on the bay the moonlight lay, 
And the shadow of the moon. 

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, 
That stands above the rock ; 
The moonlight steeped in silentness 
The steady weathercock. 

And the bay was white with silent light, 
Till rising from the same, 
The angelic spirits Full many shapes, that shadows were, 

leave the dead . 

bodies, In crimson colours came. 



475 



480 



and appear in their a little distance from the prow 

own forms of light. 

Those crimson shadows were. 
I turned my eyes upon the deck- 
O Christ ! what saw I there ! 



485 



Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, 
And, by the holy rood ! 
A man all light, a seraph-man, 
On every corse there stood. 



490 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 369 

This seraph band each waved his hand : 

It was a heavenly sight ! 

They stood as signals to the land, 

Each one a lovely light ; 495 

This seraph band, each waved his hand : 
No voice did they impart — 
No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank 
Like music on my heart. 

But soon I heard the dash of oars, 500 

I heard the Pilot's cheer ; 

My head was turned perforce away, 

And I saw a boat appear. 

The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, 

I heard them coming fast. 505 

Dear Lord in heaven ! it was a joy 

The dead men could not blast. 

I saw a third — I heard his voice : 

It is the Hermit good ! 

He singeth loud his godly hymns 510 

That he makes in the wood. 

He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away 

The Albatross's blood. 



PART VII. 

The Hermit of the This Hermit good lives in that wood 

Which slopes down to the sea. 515 

How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! 

He loves to talk with marineres 

That come from a far countree. % 

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — 

He hath a cushion plump ; 520 

It is the moss that wholly hides 

The rotted old oak stump. 

The skiff-boat neared ; I heard them talk : 

" Why, this is strange, I trow ! 

Where are those lights so many and fair 525 

That signal made but now ? " 



37o 



THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



approacheth the ship 
with wonder. 



'■' Strange, by my faith ! " the Hermit said — 
' And they answered not our cheer ! 
The planks look warped ! and see those sails, 
How thin they are and sere ! 
I never saw aught like to them, 
Unless perchance it were 

" Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 
My forest brook along, 
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, 
That eats the she-wolf's young." 

" Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look," 
(The Pilot made reply) 
" I am a-feared." " Push on, push on ! " 
Said the Hermit cheerily 

The boat came closer to the ship, 
But I nor spake nor stirred ; 
The boat came close beneath the ship, 
And straight a sound was heard. 

suddenly Under the water it rumbled on. 
Still louder and more dread : 
It reached the ship, it split the bay ; 
The ship went down like lead. 



The ancient Manner Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, 

is saved in the Pilot's -, T1 . , , , 

boat. Which sky and ocean smote, 



530 



535 



540 



545 



The ship 
sinketh. 



Like one that hath been seven days drowned 
My body lay afloat ; 
But swift as dreams, myself I found 
Within the Pilot's boat. 

Upon the whirl where sank the ship, 
The boat spun round and round ; 
And all was still, save that the hill 
Was telling of the sound. 

I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked 
And fell down in a fit ; 
The holy Hermit raised his eyes, 
And prayed where he did sit. 



55o 



555 



560 



The ancient Mariner 
earnestly entreateth 
the Hermit to shrieve 
him; and the pen- 
ance of life falls on 
him. 



And ever and anon 
throughout his fu- 
ture life an agony 
constraineth him to 
travel from land to 
land: 



THE ANCIENT MARINER. 37 * 

I took the oars. The Pilot's boy, 

Who now cloth crazy go, 565 

Laughed loud and long, and all the while 

His eyes went to and fro. 

" Ha ! ha ! " quoth he, " full plain I see, 

The Devil knows how to row." 

And now, all in my own countree, 570 

I stood on the firm land ! 

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, 

And scarcely he could stand. 

" O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man ! " 

The Hermit crossed his brow. 575 

" Say quick,'' quoth he, " I bid thee say — 

What manner of man art thou ? " 

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched 
With a woful agony, 

Which forced me to begin my tale; 580 

And then it left me free. 

Since then, at an uncertain hour, 

That agony returns : 

And till my ghastly tale is told, 

This heart within me burns. 585 

I pass, like night, from land to land ; 

I have strange power of speech ; 

That moment that his face I see, 

I know the man that must hear me ; 

To him my tale I teach. 590 

What loud uproar burst from that door ! 

The wedding-guests are there : 

But in the garden-bower the bride 

And bride-maids singing are : 

And hark the little vesper bell, 595 

Which biddeth me to prayer ! 

O Wedding-guest ! this soul hath been 

Alone on a wide, wide sea : 

So lonely 'twas, that God himself 

Scarce seemed there to be. 600 



37* THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

O sweeter than the marriage feast, 
Tis sweeter far to me, 
To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company ! — 

To walk together to the kirk, 605 

And all together pray, 

While each to his great Father bends, 

Old men, and babes, and loving friends, 

And youths and maidens gay ! 

and to teach, by his Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 610 

own example, love 

and reverence to all To thee, thou W eddmg-gUest ! 

madt andWth G ° d He prayeth well, who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 

He prayeth best, who loveth best 

All things both great and small ; 615 

For the dear God who loveth us, 

He made and loveth all. 

The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 

Whose beard with age is hoar, 

Is gone: and now the Wedding-guest 620 

Turned from the bridegroom's door. 

He went like one that hath been stunned. 

And is of sense forlorn : 

A sadder and a wiser man, 

He rose the morrow morn. 6:5 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 1771-1832. 

The new interest in the Middle Ages and in the bsdMd 
poetry and folk-song of England, finds its greatest inter- 
preter in both the poetry and prose of the author of the 
Waverley Novels, who remained for so long a time " The 
Great Unknown." 

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, August 15. 1 " 7 r . 
He took a genuine pride in the fact that he came of 
"gentle folk," and traces, in his Autobiography \ his 
lineal descent from that ancient chief, Auld Watt of 



SIX WALTER SCOTT. 373 

Harden, " whose name I have made to ring in many a 
Border ditty, and from his fair dame, the Flower of 
Yarrow ; no bad genealogy for a Border Minstrel." * 

His father, for whom Walter was named, was by pro- 
fession a Writer to the Signet (attorney). His mother 
'was Anne Rutherford, daughter of a distinguished phy- 
sician of Edinburgh. Walter seems to have been a 
most engaging child, and a great favorite with his elders, 
who were ready to tell him the stories of local legend in 
which he delighted. He thus came to know the past of 
his country as he only knows it who learns it, not from 
books, but from the rural depositories of tradition. So 
Darsie Latimer, in Rcdgauntlet, heard from the lips of 
Wandering Willie the marvelous tales of his ancient 
house. 

Much of Scott's childhood was spent in the country at 
Sandy Knowe, and here he was in familiar intercourse 
with the country people. He sat at their firesides, listen- 
ing to scraps of old ballads and quaint songs, stories of 
Border feuds and Scotch superstitions, anecdotes of the 
great risings of 171 5 and 1745. He thus laid, deep in 
his wonderful memory, the foundations of that knowl- 
edge which he was to put into the best setting. 

By his genial and embracing sympathy, he, as it were, 
was able to absorb Scotland herself, the outward aspect 
of her valleys, glens, and lochs, her towns and fishing 
villages and hamlets, her people's life, her history, 
spirit, and tradition, and lift them, by the simple force of 
his imaginative and poetic art, into the unchanging re- 
gion of Literature. 

Scott was admitted a member of the faculty of advo- 
cates in 1792. He obtained the orifice of Sheriff-depute of 
Selkirkshire in 1799, and in 1806 that of clerk of the 

* See " Lockhart's Life of Scott," vol. i. chap. i. Consult also "Lady 
of the Lake," canto v. verse 7, supposed to be a description of Scott's 
border ancestry. 



374 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

session in reversion. He entered upon the emoluments 
of this last in 1812, and from that time was in receipt of 
an income of ;£i6oo a year from these two offices. He 
discharged these duties for twenty-five years with great 
fidelity, and the income therefrom enabled him to make 
of literature " a staff and not a crutch," as he was fond 
of saying. But, be the motive what it may, we can 
scarcely imagine more constant and rapid work than Scott 
accomplished during the period between January, 1805, 
the date of the publication of The Lay of The Last Min- 
strel, and 1 83 1, the year in which he wrote the last of his 
great series of novels. From 1825, when money diffi- 
culties came upon him, he worked tremendously to clear 
himself from debt. The story of this struggle is a very 
familiar one, and its full details have become clearer 
to the world since the publication, in 1890, of Sir Walter's 
Journal. No one can read the private record of that 
brave fight, saddened by domestic loss, by failing health, 
yet courageously maintained until the last, without being 
moved to a depth of reverent admiration and affection 
for Scott's own personal character; without amazement 
at his marvelous power over himself and over his pen. 
At last the struggle ended. After his return from a con- 
tinental tour, taken in the vain hope of restoring health 
to mind and body, he died peacefully in his home at 
Abbotsford, September 21, 1831, surrounded by his 
children and faithful dependants. He was buried in Dry- 
burgh Abbey. 

Scott possessed in a remarkable degree the rare power 
of grasping life, as it were, with the bare hand ; of learn- 
ing, by a shrewd insight into men's lives, 

Scott's Work. ' J r 11 u- -4.1 

and by a healthy fellowship with nature in 
all her moods. With this faculty he had the gift of tell- 
ing what he saw. In English literature, Chaucer had this 
power. Spenser had not. Shakespeare is the supremest 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 375 

instance of it in any literature, while in Milton it is com- 
paratively absent. 

The distinctive features of the poetry of Scott are ease, 
rapidity of movement, a spirited flow of narrative that 
holds our attention, an out-of-doors atmos- 

. . r .... As a Poet. 

pnere and power or natural description, an 
occasional intrusion of a gentle personal sadness ; and 
but little more. The subtle and mystical element, so 
characteristic of the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
is not to be found in that of Scott, while in lyrical power 
he does not approach Shelley. We find instead an in- 
tense sense of reality in all his natural descriptions ; it 
surrounds them with an indefinable atmosphere, because 
they are so transparently true. Scott's first impulse in 
the direction of poetry was given him from the study of 
the German ballads, especially Burger's Lenore, of which 
he made a translation. As his ideas widened, he wished 
to do for Scottish Border life what Goethe had done for 
the ancient feudalism of the Rhine. He was at first un- 
decided whether to choose prose or verse as his medium, 
but a legend was sent him by the Countess of Dalkeith, 
with a request that he would put it in ballad form. 
Having thus the framework for his purpose, he went to 
work, and The Lay of the Last Minstrel was the result.* 
It became at once extremely popular, and we are told 
that " Scott was astonished at his own success." This 
decided him to make literature his profession, and by 
1813 he had published Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, 
and Rokeby. The battle scene in Marmion has been 
called the most Homeric passage in modern literature, 
and his description of The Battle of BeaVan Duine from 
The Lady of the Lake, is an exquisite piece of narration, 

* Coleridge's poem of " Christabel " was the immediate inspiration of this 
poem. Scott says, " It is to Mr. Coleridge I am bound to make the acknowl- 
edgment due from a pupil to his master." 



37 6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

from the gleam of the spears in the thicket to the death 
of Roderick Dhu at its close. In the deepest sense, 
Scott is one with the spirit of his time in his grasp of fact, 
in that looking steadily at the object, which Wordsworth 
had fought for in poetry, which Carlyle had advocated in 
philosophy. He is allied, too, to that broad sympathy 
for man which lay closest to the heart of the age's 
literary expression. Wordsworth's part is to inspire an 
interest in the lives of men and women about us ; Scott's, 
to enlarge the bounds of our sympathy beyond the 
present and to people the silent centuries. Shelley's 
inspiration is hope for the future ; Scott's is reverence 
for the past. 

Scott wrote twenty-three novels in fourteen years. 

He wrote them during the faithful discharge of the 

duties of his profession, among the pressure 

As a Novelist. . f . . 

of business anxieties, and, in spite of all, 
found time for the exercise of a most charming and open- 
hearted hospitality to all who sought his friendship. 
He may be said to have created the historical novel. 
Fielding and others had excelled in the portrayal of 
daily life and manners, and, as we have already seen, 
there were writers who had attempted in fiction the 
romantic and the marvelous, but only Shakespeare 
himself had so reanimated historical characters with the 
spirit of life and action that they seem to be once more 
in living presence among us. Scott stands alone in that 
branch of literary work. Others have made, it may be, 
one great success in the novel of history ; such as 
Thackeray in Henry Esmond, George Eliot in .Romola, 
and Robert Louis Stevenson in the The Master of Bal- 
lantrae ; but Scott has brought alike the times of the 
Crusaders and of the Stuarts before us ; he has peopled 
the land of Palestine and the hills of Scotland, the forests 
of England and the borders of the Rhine, for our edifica- 



SIR WALTER SCOl^T. 377 

tion and delight. Paladin and peasant, earl and yeo- 
man, kings and their jesters, bluff men-at-arms and gentle 
bovver maidens, all spring into life again at the touch 
of the " Great Enchanter." How bare would be our 
mental pictures of Queen Elizabeth were we deprived of 
the scenes in Kenilworth in which she stands before us, 
alive forever in her wrath, as Leicester's injured queen, 
or yielding to those more womanly touches of feeling as 
she listens to the sympathy of her women, or of her 
" Cousin Hunsdon." The wonderful charm which the 
unfortunate Queen of Scots had for all who approached 
her would be harder to realize were it not that, as we 
read The Abbot, we too succumb for a while to its power, 
and feel that, with Roland Graeme, we could die for her, 
right or wrong. There is no doubt that Scott is often 
historically inaccurate ; he takes liberties, as did his 
great master, Shakespeare, with place and with facts ; 
but he has the power to humanize for us the people 
about whom he writes ; he puts a spirit and a soul into 
the dry facts of history, and gives them, by his imagina- 
tion, the very breath of life. History alone hardly helps 
us to realize the burning zeal felt by the Crusaders for 
the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, or the general detes- 
tation of the Jew in England, as elsewhere on the Con- 
tinent. We must go to The Talisman and IvanJwe to 
learn what it was to journey with Kenneth and Saladin 
over the Desert ; to feast as did the Black Knight with 
Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, and to feel our hearts 
thrill with the outlaws as we do homage to Richard of 
the Lion Heart. But it is not only in the field of history 
that the " magic wand " has power. In the novel of 
simple daily life, in a time nearer to Scott's own day, he 
is perhaps even happier in his vivid pictures. Nowhere 
has he more touchingly portrayed the life of Scotland's 
people than in The Heart of Midlothian, that story so 



37^ THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

dear to Scottish men and women. Here Scott touches 
both extremes : the Queen, and the Duke of Argyle, and 
the lowly peasant maiden, strong in her cause and in her 
truth ; and what a picture is their meeting! 

When we review, therefore, the enormous range and 
the high average excellence of Scott's work in fiction, 
and remember the ease and rapidity with which it was 
produced, we feel that he exhibits a creative force rare 
even among the great geniuses of the literature. 

Scott's sense of humor was keen, and his own enjoy- 
ment of it cannot be doubted. Many scenes in Red- 
gauntlet, The Antiquary, or Old Mortality, are full of 
genuine fun ; and the character of Caleb Balderstone, in 
The Bridg of Lammermoor, is unsurpassed of its kind. 

Scott works in the primary colors. He is not intense, 

he does not question deeply, or analyze motives. He 

does not excel in that morbid anatomy of 

Summary. . . . 

emotion which has become the fashion with 
many novelists of this present age of so-called superior 
culture and advanced ideas. He thinks that life is good, 
and that there is wholesome enjoyment to be gained 
from action. He admires honor and courtesy and 
bravery among men, and beauty and gentleness and 
modesty among women. The greatness and the good- 
ness of Scott must ever appeal to us, the charm and glow 
of his verse delight us. The Waverley Novels are the 
splendid witness of the breadth, sympathy, and purity of 
one of the great creative intellects of our literature, 
worthy, indeed, of a place among the immortals, side by 
side with Chaucer and nearest to the feet of Shake- 
speare himself. 



SELECTIONS FROM SCOTT. 379 

THE BATTLE OF BEAL'AN DUINE. 

FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE. — CANTO VI. 
XV. 

" The Minstrel came once more to view 
The eastern ridge of Benvenue, 
For, ere he parted, he would say- 
Farewell to lovely Loch Achray — 
Where shall he find, in foreign land, 
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand ! — 
There is no breeze upon the fern, 

No ripple on the lake, 
Upon her eyry nods the erne, 

The deer has sought the brake ; 
The small birds will not sing aloud, 

The springing trout lies still, 
So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud, 
That swathes, as with a purple shroud, 

Benledi's distant hill. 
Is it the thunder's solemn sound 

That mutters deep and dread, 
Or echoes from the groaning ground 

The warrior's measured tread ? 
Is it the lightning's quivering glance 

That on the thicket streams, 
Or do they flash on spear and lance 

The sun's retiring beams ? 
I see the dagger-crest of Mar, 
I see the Moray's silver star, 
Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war, * 

That up the lake comes winding far ! 
To hero bound for battle-strife, 

Or bard of martial lay, 
'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, 

One glance at their array ! 

XVI. 

" Their light-armed archers far and near 
Surveyed the tangled ground, 
Their centre ranks, with pike and spear, 
A twilight forest frowned, 



380 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Their barded horsemen, in the rear, 

The stern battalia crowned. 
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang, 

Still were the pipe and drum ; 
Save heavy tread, and armor's clang, 

The sullen march was dumb. 
There breathed no wind their crests to shake, 

Or wave their flags abroad ; 
Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake, 

That shadowed o'er their road. 
Their vanward scouts no tidings bring, 

Can rouse no lurking foe, 
Nor spy a trace of living thing, 

Save when they stirred the roe ; 
The host moves, like a deep-sea wave, 
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave, 

High-swelling, dark, and slow. 
The lake is passed, and now they gain 
A narrow and a broken plain, 
Before the Trosach's rugged jaws ; 
And here the horse and spearmen pause, 
While, to explore the dangerous glen, 
Dive through the pass the archer-men. 

XVII. 

" At once there rose so wild a yell 
Within that dark and narrow dell, 
As all the fiends from heaven that fell 
Had pealed the banner-cry of hell ! 
Forth from the pass in tumult driven, 
Like chaff before the wind of heaven, 

The archery appear : 
For life ! for life ! their flight they ply — • 
And shriek and shout and battle-cry, 
And plaids and bonnets waving high, 
And broadswords flashing to the sky, 

Are maddening in the rear. 
Onward they drive, in dreadful race, 

Pursuers and pursued. 
Before that tide of flight and chase, 



SELECTIONS FROM SCOTT. $%1 

How shall it keep its rooted place, 

The spearmen's twilight wood ? — 
4 Down, down,' cried Mar, ' your lances down ! 

Bear back both friend and foe ! ' 
Like reeds before the tempest's frown, 
That serried grove of lances brown 

At once lay leveled low ; 
And closely shouldering side to side, 
The bristling ranks the onset bide — 
' We'll quell the savage mountaineer, 

As their Tinchel * cows the game ! 
They come as fleet as forest deer, 

We'll drive them back as tame.' 

XVIII. 

" Bearing before them in their course 
The relics of the archer force, 
Like wave with crest of sparkling foam, 
Right onward did Clan Alpine come. 
Above the tide, each broadsword bright 
Was brandishing like beam of light, 

Each targe was dark below ; 
And with the ocean's mighty swing, 
When heaving to the tempest's wing, 

They hurled them on the foe. 
I heard the lance's shivering crash, 
As when the whirlwind rends the ash ; 
I heard the broadsword's deadly clang, 
As if an hundred anvils rang ! 
But Moray wheeled his rearward rank 
Of horsemen on Clan Alpine's flank, 

' My banner-man, advance ! 
' I see,' he cried, ' their column shake. 
Now, gallants ! for your ladies' sake, 

Upon them with the lance ! ' 
The horsemen dashed among the rout, 

As deer break through the broom ; 
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out, 

They soon make lightsome room. 

* A gradually narrowing circle of sportsmen, closing in the game. Ward's 
Ed. "Eng. Poets." 



3&2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Clan Alpine's best are backward borne — 

Where, where was Roderick then ! 
One blast upon his bugle-horn 

Were worth a thousand men. 
And refluent through the pass of fear 

The battle's tide was poured ; 
Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear, 

Vanished the mountain-sword. 
As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep, 

Receives her roaring linn, 
As the dark caverns of the deep 

Suck the wild whirlpool in, 
So did the deep and darksome pass 

Devour the battle's mingled mass ; 
None linger now upon the plain, 
Save those who ne'er shall fight again. 

XIX. 

" Now westward rolls the battle's din, 
That deep and doubling pass within. 
Minstrel, away ! the work of fate 
Is bearing on ; its issue wait, 
W T here the rude Trosach's dread defile 
Opens on Katrine's lake and isle. 
Gray Benvenue I soon repassed, 
Loch Katrine lay beneath me cast. 
The sun is set ; — the clouds are met, 

The lowering scowl of heaven 
An inky hue of livid blue 

To the deep lake has given ; 
Strange gusts of wind from mountain glen 
Swept o'er the lake, then sunk again. 
I heeded not the eddying surge, 
Mine eye but saw the Trosach's gorge, 
Mine ear but heard that sullen sound, 
Which like an earthquake shook the ground, 
And spoke the stern and desperate strife 
That parts not but with parting life, 
Seeming, to minstrel ear, to toll 
The dirge of many a passing soul. 
Nearer it comes — the dim-wood glen 



SELECTIONS FROM SCOTT. 383 

The martial flood disgorged again, 

But not in mingled tide ; 
The plaided warriors of the North 
High on the mountain thunder forth 

"And overhang its side, 
While by the lake below appears 
The darkening cloud of Saxon spears. 
At weary bay each shattered band, 
Eyeing their foemen, sternly stand ; 
Their banners stream like tattered sail, 
That flings its fragments to the gale, 
And broken arms and disarray 
Marked the fell havoc of the day. 

XX. 

Viewing the mountain's ridge askance, 
The Saxons stood in sullen trance, 
Till Moray pointed with his lance, 

And cried : ' Behold yon isle ! — 
See ! none are left to guard its strand 
But women weak, that wring the hand : 
'Tis there of yore the robber band 

Their booty wont to pile ; — 
My purse, with bonnet-pieces store, 
To him will swim a bowshot o'er, 
And loose a shallop from the shore. 
Lightly we'll tame the war-wolf then, 
Lords of his mate, and brood, and den.' 
Forth from the ranks a spearman sprung, 
On earth his casque and corselet rung, 

He plunged him in the wave : — 
All saw the deed, — the purpose knew, 
And to their clamors Benvenue 

A mingled echo gave ; 
The Saxons shout, their mate to cheer, 
The helpless females scream for fear, 
And yells for rage the mountaineer. 
'Twas then, as by the outcry riven, 
Poured down at once the lowering heaven : 
A whirlwind swept Loch Katrine's breast, 
Her billows reared their snowy crest. 



3^4 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Well for the swimmer swelled they high, 

To mar the Highland marksman's eye ; 

For round him showered, mid rain and hail, 

The vengeful arrows of the Gael. 

In vain. — He nears the isle — and lo ! 

His hand is on a shallop's bow. 

Just then a flash of lightning came, 

It tinged the waves and strand with flame ; 

I marked Duncraggan's widowed dame, 

Behind an oak I saw T her stand, 

A naked dirk gleamed in her hand : — 

It darkened — but amid the moan 

Of waves I heard a dying groan ; — 

Another flash ! — the spearman floats 

A weltering corse beside the boats, 

And the stern matron o'er him stood, 

Her hand and dagger streaming blood. 

XXI. 

" ■ Revenge ! revenge ! ' the Saxons cried, 
The Gaels' exulting shout replied. 
Despite the elemental rage, 
Again they hurried to engage ; 
But, ere they closed in desperate fight, 
Bloody with spurring came a knight, 
Sprung from his horse, and from a crag 
Waved 'twixt the hosts a milk-white flag. 
Clarion and trumpet by his side 
Rung forth a truce-note high and wide, 
While in the monarch's name, afar 
A herald's voice forbade the war, 
For Bothwell's lord and Roderick bold 
Were both, he said, in captive hold. — 
But here the lay made sudden stand, 
The harp escaped the minstrel's hand ! 
Oft had he stolen a glance, to spy 
How Roderick brooked his minstrelsy : 
At first, the chieftain, to the chime, 
With lifted hand kept feeble time ; 
That motion ceased, — yet feeling strong" 
Varied his look as changed the song ; 



SELECTIONS FROM SCOTT, 3 8 5 

At length no more his deafened ear 

The minstrel melody can hear ; 

His face grows sharp, — his hands are clenched, 

As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched ; 

Set are his teeth, his fading eye 

Is sternly fixed on vacancy ; 

Thus, motionless and moanless, drew 

His parting breath stout Roderick Dhu ! — 

Old Allan-bane looked on aghast, 

While grim and still his spirit passed ; 

But when he saw that life was fled, 

He poured his wailing o'er the dead." 

COUNTY GUY. 

Ah ! County Guy, the hour is nigh, 

The sun has left the lea, 
The orange-flower perfumes the bower, 

The breeze is on the sea. 
The lark, his lay who trilled all day, 

Sits hushed his partner nigh ; 
Breeze, bird, and flower, confess the hour, 

But where is County Guy ? 

The village maid steals through the shade, 

Her shepherd's suit to hear ; 
To beauty shy, by lattice high, 

Sings highborn Cavalier. 
The star of love, all stars above, 

Now reigns o'er earth and sky ; 
And high and low the influence know — * 

But where is County Guy ? 

BORDER BALLAD. 

FROM THE MONASTERY. 
I. 

March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale, 

Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order? 

March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale, 

All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the Border. 



386 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Many a banner spread, 
Flutters above your head, 

Many a crest that is famous in story. 

Mount and make ready then, 
Sons of the mountain glen, 

Fight for the queen and our old Scottish glory. 



Come from the hills where your hirsels are grazing, 

Come from the glen of the buck and the roe ; 
Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing, 
Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow. 

Trumpets are sounding, 

War-steeds are bounding, 
Stand to your arms and march in good order, 

England shall many a day 

Tell of the bloody fray, 
When the Blue Bonnets came over the Border. 

CHARLES LAMB, 1775-1834. 

Charles Lamb — called by Coleridge the " gentled 
hearted Charles "* — was born in London, 1775. He was 
the youngest of three children ; his family were in poor 
circumstances, his father being little more than a servant 
to a Mr. Salt of the Inner Temple. From his eighth to 
his fifteenth year, Charles studied as a " blue-coated boy " 
at Christ's Hospital, and here there sprung up between 
him and his fellow-student Coleridge a friendship which 
proved lifelong. On leaving school he obtained a clerk- 
ship in the South Sea House, and two years later in the 
India Office. His father's health failed, and Charles be- 
came the chief support of the little family. But the 
quiet of their household was soon broken by a terrible 
event. Mary, Charles Lamb's sister, was seized with 
violent insanity, and killed their mother (1796). Mary 

* See Coleridge's poem, " This Lime Tree Bower my Prison," in which 
several references to Lamb occur. 



CHARLES LAMB. 3 8 7 

was taken to an asylum, where she recovered, and 
Charles procured her release on his becoming responsi- 
ble for her guardianship. Thenceforth, after his father's 
death, he devoted himself to the care of his afflicted 
sister. For intervals, which he called " between the 
acts," they lived quietly in the most devoted companion- 
ship, Mary aiding \\\ her brother's literary work, and 
presiding at their little receptions, at which Coleridge 
and sometimes Wordsworth attended. Then, again, Mary 
would " fall ill," and return for a time to the asylum. 

Through all this strain and distress, and occasional 
fears for himself, Lamb's cheerful and loving nature 
saved him from bitterness and despair, and he found 
courage to work. He lived his " happy-melancholy " 
life, and died quietly at London in 1834. His sister, 
whose name is forever linked with his as the object of his 
care and partner of his literary work, survived until 1847. 

In spite of daily work in the office, and of his 
domestic troubles, Lamb found time and heart for litera- 
ture. As a boy he had spent many odd hours in the 
library of Mr. Salt, " browsing chiefly among the older 
English authors "; and he refers to Bridget Elia (Mary 
Lamb) as "tumbled early, by accident or design, into a 
spacious closet of good old English reading." This 
preference for Elizabethan writers endured through life, 
and their style and mode of thought became in some de- 
gree natural to himself. His first venture was a contri- 
bution of four sonnets to a book of poems on various 
subjects by his friend Coleridge (1796). After some 
minor works, he published John Woodvil (1801), a tragedy 
on the early Elizabethan model, which was severely 

criticized, and later a farce, Mr. H (1806), which 

failed on the first performance. 

His Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Who Wrote 
about the Time of Shakespeare, with notes, aroused new 



3%S THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

interest in a great body of writers then largely neglected, 
and showed Lamb himself a critic of keen natural insight, 
his suggestions often being of more value than the 
learned notes of commentators. Thus Lamb, with Wil- 
liam Hazlitt, another critic of the time, helped in bring- 
ing about that new era of criticism in which Coleridge 
was the chief mover. In 1807 appeared Tales Founded 
on the Plays of Shakespeare, the joint work of himself and 
his sister Mary. Lamb is best known, however, by his 
essays, first published, under the name of Elia, in -the 
Loyidon Magazine (founded 1820). Written for the most 
part on trivial subjects, with no purpose but to please, 
they bring us close to the lovable nature of the man, 
full, indeed, of sadness, but full, too, of a refined and 
kindly humor, ready to flash out in a pun, or to light up 
with a warm and gentle glow the cloud that overhangs 
him. In these essays we see Lamb's conservative spirit 
and hatred of change. His literary sympathies lay with 
the past, and he clung with fondness to the memories 
of his childhood. The essay here given is only one 
among many in which he has embodied these feelings. 

CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY YEARS AGO. 

In Mr. Lamb's " Works," published a year or two ago, I find a 
magnificent eulogy on my old school,* such as it was, or now appears 
to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, 
very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding 
with his ; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the 
cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can be 
said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument 
most ingeniously. 

I remember L. at school ; and can well recollect that he had 

some peculiar advantages, which I and others of his schoolfellows 

had not. His friends lived in town, and were near at hand ; and he 

had the privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, 

* " Recollections of Christ's Hospital." 



SELECTIONS FROM LAMB. 389 

through some invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The 
present worthy sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how 
that happened. He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while 
we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — 
moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking 
of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk- 
porridge, blue and tasteless, and the pease-soup of Saturday, coarse 
and choking, were enriched for him with a slice of " extraordinary 
bread and butter," from the hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednes- 
day's mess of millet, somewhat less repugnant — we had three banyan 
to four meat days in the week — was endeared to his palate with a 
lump of double-refined, and a smack of ginger (to make it to go down 
the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. In lieu of our half 
pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays (strong as 
euro equina), with detestable marigolds floating in the pail to poison 
the broth — our scanty mutton scrags on Fridays — and rather more 
savory, but grudging, portions of the same flesh, rotten-roasted or 
rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which excited our appetites and 
disappointed our stomachs in almost equal proportion) — he had his 
hot plate of roast veal, or the more tempting griskin (exotics unknown 
to our palates), cooked in the paternal kitchen (a great thing), and 
brought him daily by his maid or aunt ! I remember the good old 
relative (in whom love forbade pride) squatted down upon some odd 
stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the viands (of higher 
regale than those cates which the ravens ministered to the Tishbite); 
and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding. There was 
love for the bringer; shame for the thing brought, and the manner of 
its bringing ; sympathy for those who were too many to share in it ; 
and, at top of all, hunger (eldest, strongest of the passions !) predomi- 
nant, breaking down the stony fences of shame, and awkwardness, 
and a troubling over-consciousness. * 

I was a poor, friendless boy. My parents, and those who should 
care for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, 
which they could reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after 
a little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my 
first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They 
seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few 
enough ; and, one after another, they all failed me, and I felt myself 
alone among six hundred playmates. 

Oh, the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead ! 
The yearnings which I used to have towards it in those unfledged 



39° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

years ! How, in my dreams; would my native town (far in the West) 
come back, with its church, and trees, and faces! How I would 
wake weeping, and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet 
Calne in Wiltshire ! 

To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the recollec- 
tion of those friendless holidays. The long, warm days of summer 
never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting 
memory of those whole-day leaves, when, by some strange arrange- 
ment, we were turned out for the livelong day upon our own hands, 
whether we had friends to go to, or none. I remember those bathing 
excursions to the New-River, which L. recalls with such relish, 
better, I think, than he can — for he was a home-seeking lad, and did 
not much care for such water pastimes : — How merrily we would 
sally forth into the fields ; and strip under the first warmth of the 
sun ; and wanton like young dace in the streams ; getting us appetites 
for noon, which those of us that were penniless (our scanty morning 
crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying — while the 
cattle, and the birds, and the fishes, were at feed about us and we had 
nothing to satisfy our cravings — the very beauty of the day, and the 
exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge 
upon them! — How, faint and languid, finally, we would return, towards 
nightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, that the 
hours of our uneasy liberty had expired ! 

It was worse, in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets 
objectless — shivering at cold windows of print-shops to extract a little 
amusement ; or haply, as a last resort in hopes of a little novelty, to 
pay a fifty-times-repeated visit (where our individual faces should be 
as well known to the warden as those of his own charges) to the lions 
in the Tower — to whose levee, by courtesy immemorial, we had a 
prescriptive title to admission. 

L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us to the 
foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaint 
which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was un- 
derstood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the 
severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppres- 
sions of these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. 
I have been called out of my bed, and waked for the purpose, in the 
coldest winter nights — and this not once, but night after night — in my 
shirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern thong, with eleven other 
sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when there has been 
any talking heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six last beds 



SELECTIONS FROM LAMB. 39 1 

in the dormitory, where the youngest children of us slept, answerable 
for an offense they neither dared to commit, nor had the power to hinder. 
The same execrable tyranny drove the younger part of us from the 
fires, when our feet were perishing with snow ; and, under the crudest 
penalties, forbade the indulgence of a drink of water, when we lay in 
sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season and the day's sports. 

There was one H , who, I learned in after clays, was seen expiating 

some maturer offense in the hulks. (Do I flatter myself in fancying 
that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered — at Nevis, 
I think, or St. Kitts — some few years since ? My friend Tobin was 
the benevolent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This 
petty Nero actually branded a boy who had offended him, with a red- 
hot iron ; and nearly starved forty of us with exacting contributions, 
to the one-half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredi- 
ble as it may seem, with the connivance of the nurse's daughter (a 
young flame of his), he had contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon 
the leads of the ward, as they called our dormitories. This game 
went on for better than a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare 
well but he must cry roast meat — happier than Caligula's minion, 
could he have kept his own counsel — but, foolisher, alas ! than any of 
his species in the fables — waxing fat, and kicking, in the fullness of 
bread, one unlucky minute would needs proclaim his good fortune to 
the world below ; and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's- 
horn blast, as (toppling down the walls of his own Jericho) set con- 
cealment any longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, with cer- 
tain attentions, to Smithfield ; but I never understood that the patron 
underwent any censure on the occasion. This was in the steward- 
ship of L.'s admired Perry. 

Under the same facile administration can L. have forgotten the 
cool impunity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in 
open platters, for their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint, 
which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out 
for our dinners ? These things were daily practiced in that magnifi- 
cent apartment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) 
praises so highly for the grand paintings " by Verrio and others," 
with which it is " hung round and adorned." But the sight of sleek, 
well fed, blue-coat boys in the pictures was, at that time, I believe, 
little consolatory to him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better 
part of our provisions carried away before our faces by harpies ; and 
ourselves reduced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido) 
" To feed our mind with idle portraiture/ 5 



39 2 THE MODERN EXGLISH PERIOD. 

L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags, or the 
fat of fresh beef boiled ; and sets it down to some superstition. But 
these unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (chil- 
dren are universally fat-hatersj, and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, 
unsalted, are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent 
to a ghoul, and held in equal detestation— suffered under the 
imputation 

" 'Twas said 
He ate strange flesh." 

He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants 
left at his table (not many, nor very choice fragments, you may credit 
me) — and, in an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which 
he would convey away, and secretly stow in the settle that stood at 
his bedside. None saw when he ate them. It was rumored that he 
privately devoured them in the night. He was watched, but no 
traces of such midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported 
that, on leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a 
large blue check handkerchief full of something. This, then, must be 
the accursed thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he 
could dispose of it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief 
generally prevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. 
No one would play with him. He was excommunicated : put out of 
the pale of the school. He was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but 
he underwent every mode of that negative punishment which is more 
grievous than many stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was 
observed by two of his schoolfellows, who were determined to get at 
the secret, and had traced him one leave-clay for that purpose, to 
enter a large, worn-out building, such as there exist specimens of in 
Chancery Lane, which are let out to various scales of pauperism, with 
open door and a common staircase. After him they silently slunk in, 
and followed by stealth up four flights, and saw him tap at a poor 
wicket, which was opened by an aged woman, meanly clad. Sus- 
picion was now ripened into certainty. The informers had secured 
their victim. They had him in their toils. Accusation was formally 
preferred, and retribution most signal was looked for. Mr. Hath- 
away, the then steward (for this happened a little after my time), with 
that patient sagacity which tempered all his conduct, determined to 
investigate the matter before he proceeded to sentence. The result 
was that the supposed mendicants, the receivers or purchasers of the 
mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parents of , an honest cou- 



SELECTIONS FROM LAMB. 393 

pie come to decay, — whom this seasonable supply had, in all probabil- 
ity, saved from mendicancy ; and this young stork, at the expense of his 
own good name, had all this while been only feeding the old birds ! — 
The governors on this occasion, much to their honor, voted a present 

relief to the family of , and presented him with a silver medal. The 

lesson which the steward read upon RASH judgment, on the occa- 
sion of publicly delivering the medal to , I believe would not be 

lost upon his auditory. I had left school then, but I well remember . 

He was a tall, shambling youth, with a cast in his eye, not at all cal- 
culated to conciliate hostile prejudices. I have since seen him carry- 
ing a baker's basket. I think I heard he did not do quite so well by 
himself as he had done by the old folks. 

I was an hypochondriac lad ; and the sight of a boy in fetters, upon 
the day of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted 
to assuage the natural terrors of initiation. I was of tender years, 
barely turned of seven ; and had only read of such things in book, or 
seen them but in dreams. I was told he had run away. This was 
the punishment for the first offense. As a novice I was soon after 
taken to see the dungeons. These were little, square, Bedlam cells, 
where a boy could just lie at his length upon straw, and a blanket — a 
mattress, I think, was afterwards substituted — with a peep of light, 
let in askance, from a prison orifice at top, barely enough to read by, 
Here the poor boy was locked in by himself all day, without sight of 
any but the porter who brought him his bread and water — who might 
not speak to him ; — or of the beadle, who came twice a week to call 
him out to receive his periodical chastisement, which was almost wel- 
come, because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude : and 
here he was shut up by himself of nights out of the reach of any 
sound, to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and superstition 
incident to his time of life, might subject him to.* This was the 
penalty for the second offense. Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what 
became of him in the next degree ? 

The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whose 
expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as 
at some solemn auto-da-fe, arrayed in uncouth and most appalling 
attire — all trace of his late " watchet weeds " carefully effaced, he was 

* One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accordingly, at 
length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this part of the sentence, 
and the midnight torture to the spirits was dispensed with. This fancy of 
dungeons for children was a sprout of Howard's brain ; for which (saving the 
reverence due to Holy Paul), methinks,! could willingly spit upon his statue. 



394 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

exposed in a jacket resembling those which London lamplighters 
formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of this di- 
vestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could have anticipa- 
ted. With his pale and frighted features, it was as if some of those 
disfigurements in Dante had seized upon him. In this disguisement 
he was brought into the hall (L.'s favorite stateroom), where awaited 
him the whole number of his schoolfellows, whose joint lessons and 
sports he was thenceforth to share no more ; the awful presence of the 
steward, to be seen for the last time ; of the executioner beadle, clad 
in his state robe for the occasion ; and of two faces more, of direr im- 
port, because never but in these extremities visible. These were gov- 
ernors : two of whom by choice, or charter, were always accustomed 
to officiate at these Ultima Supplicia ; not to mitigate (so at least we 
understood it), but to enforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber 
Gascoigne and Peter Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one oc- 
casion, when the beadle turning rather pale, a glass of brandy was 
ordered to prepare him for the mysteries. The scourging was, after 
the old Roman fashion, long and stately. The lictor accompanied the 
criminal quite round the hall. We were generally too faint with at- 
tending to the previous disgusting circumstances to make accurate re- 
port with our eyes of the degree of corporal suffering inflicted. Re- 
port, of course, gave out the back knotty and livid. After scourging, 
he was made over, in his San Benito, to his friends, if he had any (but 
commonly such poor runagates were friendless), or to his parish offi- 
cer, who, to enchance the effect of the scene, had his station allotted 
to him on the outside of the hall gate. 

These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil 
the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and 
recreation after school hours ; and, for myself, I must confess that I 
was never happier than in them. The Upper and the Lower Gram- 
mar Schools were held in the same room ; and an imaginary line only 
divided their bounds. Their character was as different as that of the 
inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrenees. The Rev. James Boyer 
was the Upper Master ; but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over 
that portion of the apartment of which I had the good fortune to be a 
member. We lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did 
just what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an 
accidence, or a grammar, for form ; but, for any trouble it gave us, 
we might take two years in getting through the verbs deponent, and 
another two in forgetting all that we had learned about them. There 
was now and then the formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not 



SELECTIONS FROM LAMB. 395 

learned it, a brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) 
was the sole remonstrance. Field never used the rod ; and in truth 
he wielded the cane with no great good will — holding it " like a 
dancer." It looked in his hands rather like an emblem than an 
instrument of authority ; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. 
He was a good, easy man, that did not care to ruffle his own peace, 
nor perhaps set any great consideration upon the value of juvenile 
time. He came among us, now and then, but often stayed away whole 
days from us ; and when he came it made no difference to us — he had 
his private room to retire to, the short time he stayed, to be out of the 
sound of our noise. Our mirth and uproar went on. We had classics 
of our own, without being beholden to " insolent Greece or haughty 
Rome," that passed current among us — Peter Wilkins — the Adven- 
tures of the Hon. Captain Robert Boyle — the Fortunate Blue-Coat 
Boy — and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for mechanic and scien- 
tific operations; making little sundials of paper; or weaving those 
ingenious parentheses called cat-cradles ; or making dry peas to 
dance upon the end of a tin pipe ; or studying the art military over 
that laudable game " French and English," and a hundred other such 
devices to pass away the time — mixing the useful with the agreeable 
— as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle 
to have seen us. 

Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect 
to mix in equal proportion the gentleman, the. scholar, and the Chris- 
tian ; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally found to be 
the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged in gay 
parties, or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levee, when he 
should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the 
classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first 
years of their education ; and his very highest form seldom proceeded 
further than two or three of the introductory fables ©f Phasdrus. 
How things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, 
who was the proper person to have remedied these abuses, always 
affected, pehaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly 
his own. I have not been without my suspicions that he was 
not altogether displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of 
the school: We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. 
He would sometimes, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of 
the Under Master, and then, with sardonic grin, observe to one of 
his upper boys " how neat and fresh the twigs looked. " While his 
pale students were battering their brains over Xenophon and Plato, 



39 6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

with a silence as deep as that enjoined by the Samite, we were en- 
joying ourselves at our ease in our little Goshen. We saw a little into 
the secrets of his discipline, and the prospect did but the more rec- 
oncile us to our lot. His thunders rolled innocuous for us ; his 
storms came near, but never touched us ; contrary to Gideon's miracle, 
while all around were drenched, our fleece was dry.*, His boys turned 
out the better scholars ; we, I suspect, have the advantage in temper. 
His pupils cannot speak of him without something of terror allaying 
their gratitude : the remembrance of Field comes back with all the 
soothing images of indolence, and summer slumbers, and work like 
play, and innocent idleness, and Elysian exemptions, and life itself a 
" playing holiday." 

Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we 
were near enough (as I have said) to understand a little of his system. 
We occasionally heard sounds of the Ulnlantes, and caught glances 
of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was cramped 
to barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those 
periodical flights)were grating as scrannel pipes.t He would laugh, ay, 
and heartily, but then it must be at Flaccus's quibble about Rex — or at 
the tristis severitas in vultu, oxinspicere in patinas, of Terence — thin 
jests, which at their first broaching could hardly have had vis enough 
to move a Roman muscle. He had two wigs, both pedantic, but of 
different omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh powdered, betokening 
a mild day. The other, an old, discolored, unkempt, angry caxon, 
denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe to the school when he 
made his morning appearance in his passy, or passionate wig ! No 
comet expounded surer. J. B. had a heavy hand. I have known 
him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the maternal 
milk hardly dry upon its lips), with a " Sirrah, do you presume to set 
your wits at me ? " Nothing was more common than to see him 
make a headlong entry into the schoolroom from his inner recess or 
library, and, with a turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, " Od's 

* Cowley. 

f In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his coadjutor. While the 
former was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth a pignut, F. would 
be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the more flowery walks of the 
Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under the name of Vertumnus and 
Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the chroniclers of that sort of literature. It 
was accepted by Garrick, but the town did not give it their sanction. B. 
used to say of it, in a way of half compliment, half irony, that it was too 
classical for representation. 



SELECTIONS FROM LAMB. 397 

my life, sirrah " (his favorite adjuration), " I have a great mind to whip 
you "; then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into his 
lair, and, after a cooling lapse of some minutes (during which all but 
the culprit had totally forgotten the context), drive headlong out again, 
piecing out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some Devil's Litany, 
with the expletory yell — " and/ will, too." In his gentler moods, when 
the rabidtts furor was assuaged, he had resort to an ingenious method, 
peculiar, for what I have heard, to himself, of whipping the boy and 
reading the Debates at the same time ; a paragraph, and a lash be- 
tween ; which in those times, when parliamentary oratory was most at 
a height and flourishing in these realms, was not calculated to impress 
the patient with a veneration for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. 

Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual 
from his hand — when droll, squinting W., having been caught 
putting the inside of the master's desk to a use for which the 
architect had clearly not designed it, to justify himself, with great 
simplicity averred that he did not know that the thing had been fore- 
warned. This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the 
oral or declaratory, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who 
heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was 
unavoidable. 

L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Cole- 
ridge, in his literary life, has pronounced a more intelligible and 
ample encomium on them. The author of the Country Spectator 
doubts not to compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. 
Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation 
of C, when he heard that his old master was on his deathbed : 
" Poor J. B.! may all his faults be forgiven; and may he be wafted 
to bliss by little cherub-boys, all head and wings, with no bottoms to 
reproach his sublunary infirmities." 

Under him were many good and sound scholars bred. First 
Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, kindest of boys and 
men, since co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with 

Dr. T e. What an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends 

present to those who remembered the anti-socialities of their pre- 
decessors ! You never met the one by chance in the street without a 
wonder, which was quickly dissipated by the almost immediate sub- 
appearance of the other. Generally arm-in-arm, these kindly coad- 
jutors lightened for each other the toilsome duties of their profession, 
and when, in advanced age, one found it convenient to retire, the other 
was not long in discovering that it suited him to lay down the fasces 



39 8 THE MODERX ENGLISH PERIOD. 

also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same arm linked in 
yours at forty which at thirteen helped it to turn over the Cicero de 
Amicitid, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young 
heart even then was burning to anticipate ! Co-Grecian with S. was 
Th , who has since executed with ability various diplomatic func- 
tions at the northern courts. Th was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, 

sparing of speech, with raven locks. Thomas Fanshaw Middleton 
followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta), a scholar and a gentleman in 
his teens. He has the reputation of an excellent critic, and is author 
(besides the Cotcntry Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article, 
against Sharpe. M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where 
the regni novitas (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A 
humility quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be 
exactly fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans 
with a reverence for home institutions and the Church which those 
fathers watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were 
mild and unassuming. Next to M. (if not senior to him) was 
Richards, author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of 
the Oxford Prize Poems ; a pale, studious Grecian. Then followed 
poor S , ill-fated M ! of these the Muse is silent. 

" Finding some of Edward's race 
Unhappy, pass their annals by." 

Come back into' memory, like as thou wert, in the day-spring of 
thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee — the dark pillar 
not yet turned — Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, 
Bard ! — How have I seen the casual passer through the cloisters stand 
still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion 
between the speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear 
thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jam- 
blichus or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at 
such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pin- 
dar — while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents 
of the inspired charity-boy! Many were the " wit-combats " (to dally 

awhile with the w T ords of old Fuller) between him and C. V. Le G , 

" which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man- 
of-war ; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far higher in 
learning, solid, but slow in his performances. C. V. L.. with the 
English man-of-war. lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn 
with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the 
quickness of his wit and invention." 



BYRON, SHELLEY, AND ICE ATS. 399 

Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the 
cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont 
to make the old cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant 
jest of theirs ; or the anticipation of some more material, and, perad- 
venture, practical one of thine own. Extinct are those smiles, with 
that beautiful countenance, with which (for thou wert the Nireus for- 
mosus of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou didst 
disarm the wrath of infuriated town damsel, who, incensed by provok- 
ing pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by thy 
angel-look, exchanged the half formed terrible " bl — " for a gentler 
greeting — " bless thy handsome face ! " 

Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the friends of 

Elia — the junior Le G and F , who, impelled, the former by a 

roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect, ill capable 
of enduring the slights poor sizars are sometimes subject to in our 
seats of learning, exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp ; perish- 
ing, one by climate, and one on the plains of Salamanca : Le G , 

sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured ; F , dogged, faithful, anticipative 

of insult, warm-hearted, with something of the old Roman height 
about him. 

Fine, frank-hearted Fr , the present master of Hertford, with 

Marmaduke T , mildest of missionaries — and both my good 

friends still — close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. 

BYRON, SHELLEY, AND KEATS. 

These three poets, separated as they were in many 
ways, have one point in common. To each death came 
early — finding Keats and Shelley, at least, with unsung 
songs upon their lips. When we consider the greatness 
of their place in English poetry, and the role ttfat Byron 
played in the intellectual movement of his time, we won- 
der to find that neither Keats nor Shelley reached thirty, 
and that at thirty-six, Byron's stormy and passionate ca- 
reer was ended. And their achievement seems the more 
remarkabte when we reflect, further, that the work of 
Wordsworth, the greatest figure in the trio of poets im- 
mediately preceding, covered nearly half a century, while 
that of Keats and Shelley, and all the important work of 



4oo THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Lord Byron, was crowded into the twelve years following 
the appearance of Childe Harold. 

Of these three poets, Byron and Shelley stand together 
as poets of the Age of Revolution, while Keats, ignoring 
human interests and shunning those social questions 
which were still convulsing Europe, luxuriated in the 
beautiful, if enervating, world which his imagination had 
created. 

The advance of modern democracy, and those hopes 

for the future of humanity which came with it, are vital 

elements in English literature from the latter part of the 

last century down to our own day. In the lives of Byron 

and Shelley, as in those of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and 

Southey, these elements played an important part. But 

to the older group of poets, whose young eyes saw the 

fall of the Bastile, the Revolution seemed to promise 

everything ; to the younger, who grew up to witness the 

downfall of the Republic and the establishment of the 

Napoleonic despotism (First Consul, 1799; Emperor, 

1804), it seemed to have performed nothing. The older 

group outlived their first disappointment, and settled 

down with advancing years into a quiet conservatism. 

The younger, thus early set face to face with a world of 

disillusions and of blasted hopes, were moved to bitter 

denunciations or to gloomy forebodings. 

George Noel Gordon Byron (Lord) (1 788-1 824) was a 

man of brilliant and powerful personality, of reckless and 

defiant life, of strong passions, and of a de- 
Lord Byron. ... . , . . 

monstrative despair congenial to the mood 
of Europe in his time. In verse of indomitable and 
masculine vigor, full of a somewhat declamatory but 
magnificent rhetoric, he expresses the rebellious spirit 
and sentimental melancholy of his generation. His 
heroes — Childe Harold, Lara, the Corsair, Manfred, and 
the rest — in whom his enraptured readers early learned to 



LORD BYRON. 4° I 

recognize a thinly disguised figure of the poet himself, 
are, for the most part, bandits and pirates, who luxuriate 
in despair and expire in " impenitent remorse." * These 
"bold, bad men" "strut and fret their hour upon the 
stage," blackened with unnumbered crimes, and sustained 
by a secret sense of their superiority to contented and 
commonplace humanity. There is a grandeur in Milton's 
Satan, in PromctJieus chained to the crag by a power 
which cannot conquer him ; but in Byron the grandeur 
of this struggle of the individual will against the logic of 
destiny, is weakened by its strain of selfishness and insin- 
cerity. Byron cries out because he is hurt rather than 
because the world suffers. We are uncertain how much 
of his vehement despair we should take for earnest and 
how much was " playing to the gallery." Yet Byron was 
a poet of glorious audacity and force. His devotion to 
Liberty — even to dying in her cause — at least was genuine. 
This, "his one pure passion," glows in his verse and even 
lends a parting consecration to his unhappy life. Yet 
his mad revolt against things as they are becomes, as he 
grows older, but more furious and bitter, reaching its 
brilliant but terrible consummation in Don Juan. He 
once wrote: "I have simplified my politics into an 
utter detestation of all existing governments," and we 
are left in doubt whether, after all, he distinguished be- 
tween liberty and license. To such a nature, the joy in 
submission to the highest, which Wordsworth has ex- 
pressed in the Ode to Duty, must have been incompre- 
hensible. We may think of Byron as a man of volcanic 
energy and wonderful effectiveness, who, expressing as he 
did the passing mood, not of England only, but of 
Europe, was a great social and political force in the 
large movement of democracy. His poetry is dashing, 
brilliant, effective, and careless of detail. He has a feel- 

* Byron's " Corsair." 



402 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

ing for large results ; his descriptions of nature are bold, 
broadband telling; the historic past of Europe lives in 
his swelling lines. The fascination of his personality, 
the sadness of his story, will enshrine the memory of the 
man, a strong and tragic figure ; while he has left in 
many a poem, and perhaps still more in many a bril- 
liant passage, a superb vitality which secures his place 
among the poets of his country. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley (i 792-1 822) stands with Byron as 
a poet of revolt; but his devotion to Liberty is purer, 
his life ennobled by higher and more unsel- 
fish aims. With distorted and imperfect 
ideas of history, his enthusiastic and unbalanced nature 
was early captivated by wild theories of social reform. 
His enthusiasms, his theories, and an apparent obtuse- 
ness of moral perception, carried him into some grievous 
errors; yet he erred rather from a lack of judgment than 
from any deliberate intention. His wrath flamed up at 
tyranny or injustice ; set face to face with poverty or 
distress, his quick pity found relief in impulsive and 
unstinted acts of charity. Shelley, like Byron, had the 
spirit of revolution within him, at a time when a conserv- 
ative spirit was uppermost in the governments both in 
England and on the Continent. The Congress of Vienna 
had declared that everything should be as though the 
Revolution had never been; and the Holy Alliance, 
compacted in 18 15, seemed to embody the triumph of 
monarchy. In England, under the repressive policy of 
Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington, reform 
seemed helpless. Yet while Shelley denounces the 
"tyrants," his poetry lacks the cynicism and hopelessness 
of Byron's, and in his later work, as in the noble drama 
of Prometheus Unbound, he looks forward to the coming 
of a new earth. 

Shelley's life was given up to the cause of humanity, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 4^3 

and his passion for liberty molds and inspires his 
art. He is filled with a whole-souled and gener- 
ous devotion to an impossible and mistaken ideal ; he 
dreams vague and glittering dreams of what life ought to 
be, before the world has taught him what it is. He was, 
as a good critic has called him, " but a beautiful and inef- 
fectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in 
vain." 

Shelley was endowed with a supreme lyrical faculty 
almost without a parallel in English poetry. His lyrics 
are buoyant, full of music and of motion, light, clear, and 
free ; they sing themselves as we read and carry us with 
them without an effort. The Skylark * lifts us in the 
air by the rythmical pulsations of its verse, and we can 
feel the fresh, cool breeze on ourcheeks, and smell the fra- 
grance of the rain, as we read the Ode to the West JVijzd and 
The Cloud. Shelley's mastery of language was as wonder- 
ful as his mastery of melody ; reading such a poem as his 
Adonais, we feel that the medium of word music, with 
which his thought works, is plastic and subservient to his 
will. Shelley has been finely called the master of ethereal 
verse, and in general the intangible world of his imagina- 
tion seems far removed from the solid earth of every- 
day fact, yet in his drama of The Cenei, revolting as is 
its subject, he has given us a strong and tragic bit of 
work, not often equaled since the time of the Elizabe- 
thans. 

Shelley surpassed Keats by virtue of his more serious 
view of life, and his intense humanity ; he is also more 
largely endowed with the singing faculty. His poetry is 
saved by its intellectual element from the debilitating and 
cloying luxuriousness into which Keats's sense of beauty 
led him. Shelley's poet-world seems bathed in the cold 
splendor of a moonlight radiance ; that of Keats seems 

* See p. 407. 



4°4 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

warm and richly colored, heavy with the overpowering 
sweetness of incense. 

John Keats (1795-1821) contrasts strongly with the two 
young poets just considered. He is no revolutionary 
spirit ; he has no new social theories to put 
forth; he does not trouble himself with the 
questions of the day, nor employ his art in idle com- 
plaints, nor in useless efforts at reform. An absorbing 
love of beauty, comparable to that of Spenser, is his most 
marked characteristic. His verse lacks the manly, if 
somewhat careless strength of Byron, the sincere if mis- 
taken conviction of Shelley; but it possesses, in its best 
examples, an almost unrivaled perfection of form and 
beauty of expression. His taste turned naturally to 
classic Greece ; he leaves the unlovely world about him 
to live among gods and heroes, and to tell of their pas- 
sions in his own delicious verse. One of these classic 
studies, the unfinished poem Hyperion, is remarkable for 
the majestic beauty of its blank verse, the finest of its 
kind since Milton, whose epic manner it somewhat 
resembles. He delights also in the romance of the 
Middle Ages; he is a student and disciple of Spenser; 
and these influences are seen in such poems as Isabella, 
or The Pot of Basil, founded on a story of Boccaccio, and 
in St. Agnes 's Eve. 

Keats may be regarded as definitely representing the 
value of form and sweetness of expression — of beauty as 
beauty — in English verse. In this respect some of his 
work, such as his Ode on a Grecian Urn* has never been 
surpassed, and may be regarded as almost perfect. He 
has of necessity left but few examples of his best, but 
much that shows the promise of a genius yet unfolded. 
If, as some think, his poems are often too luxuriant 
and sensuous, without restraint, and wanting in deeper 

* See p. 412. 



JOHN KEA TS. 4°5 

thought, we must remember his feeble health, and his 
death from consumption at twenty-six. While we may not 
agree with Matthew Arnold in saying that " no one else 
in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression 
quite the fascinating felicity of Keats," yet none can 
fairly limit the possibilities of his life by the work of his 
sickly youth. 

Keats, with his love of beauty as yet passionate and 
unrestrained, delighting chiefly in graceful flow and 
music of sweet words, has given us verse which some- 
times cloys ; the later Tennyson, with a love less pas- 
sionate but not less real, restrained and guided by 
maturer judgment, clothes his more noble thought in 
verse whose beauty does not weary us. 



SELECTIONS FROM BYRON. 

FROM CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 

Oh ! that the desert were my dwelling-place, 

With one fair Spirit for my minister, 

That I might all forget the human race, 

And, hating no one, love but only her ! 

Ye elements ! — in whose ennobling stir 

I feel myself exalted — can ye not 

Accord me such a being ? Do I err 

In deeming such inhabit many a spot ? 

Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 
Hove not man the less, but Nature more, 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before, 
To mingle with the universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. 



406 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncofhn'd, and unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 

Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 

And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 

And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 

His petty hope in some near port or bay, 

And dasheth him again to earth : — there let him lay. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild wave's play — 
Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests : in all time, 
Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 



SELECTIONS FROM B YRON. 4°7 

Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 

The image of Eternity — the throne 

Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 

The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 

Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, 
For I was, as it were, a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 

SONNET ON CHILLON. 

Eternal spirit of the chainless mind ! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou art, 

For there thy habitation is the heart — 

The heart which love of thee alone can bind ; 

And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd — 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 

Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 

Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, 

And thy sad floor an altar— for 'twas trod, 

Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 

By Bonnivard ! May none those marks efface ! 

For they appeal from tyranny to God. *■ 

SELECTIONS FROM SHELLEY. 

TO A SKYLARK. 
I. 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 



4° 8 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



Higher still and higher, 

From the earth thou springest 

Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

in. 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are brightening, 

"Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun. 

IV. 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight ; 
Like a star of heaven 
In the broad daylight, 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 

v. 

.Keen as are the arrows 
Of that silver sphere, 
Whose intense lamp narrows 
In the white dawn clear, 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

VI. 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud ; 
As, when night is bare, 

From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 

VII. 

What thou art we know not ; 

What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 

Drops so bright to see, 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody — 



SELECTIONS FROM SHELLEY. 4°9 

VIII. 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 

IX. 

Like a highborn maiden 

In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 



Like a glowworm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 

Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view : 

XI. 

Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. 

XII. 

Sound of vernal showers ,. 

On the twinkling grass, 
Rain-awakened flowers, 

All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 

XIII. 

Teach us, sprite or bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 



4!° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

XIV. 

Chorus hymeneal, 
Or triumphal chaunt, 

Matched with thine would be all 
But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

XV. 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
What shapes of sky or plain? 
What love of thy own kind ? What ignorance of pain? 

XVI. 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be : 
Shadow of annoyance 

Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 

XVII. 

.Waking or asleep, 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 

XVIII. 

We look beforeand after, 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

XIX. 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear, 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near, 



SELECTIONS FROM SHELLEY. 4" 

XX. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures . 

That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 

XXL 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 



TO-NIGHT. 

Swiftly walk over the western wave, 

Spirit of Night ! 
Out of the misty eastern cave, 
Where all the long and lone daylight 
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, 
Which make thee terrible and dear, — 
Swift be thy flight ! 

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, 

Star-inwrought ! 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, 
Kiss her until she be wearied out, t 

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, 
Touching all with thine opiate wand — 
Come, long sought ! 

When I arose and saw the dawn 

I sighed for thee ; 
When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, 
And the weary Day turned to his rest, 
Lingering like an unloved guest, — 

I sighed for thee, 



412 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Thy brother Death came, and cried, 

Wouldst thou me ? — 
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 

Murmured like a noontide bee, 
Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
Wouldst thou me ? — And I replied, 

No, not thee ! 

Death will come when thou art dead, 

Soon, too soon ; 
Sleep will come when thou art fled ; 
Of neither would I ask the boon 
I ask of thee, beloved Night. • 
Swift be thine approaching flight, 

Come soon, soon ! 

SELECTIONS FROM KEATS. 

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. 
I. 

Thou still unravished bride of quietness, 

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme : 
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 

Of deities or mortals, or of both, 
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady ? 

What men or gods are these ? What maidens loth ? 
What mad pursuit ? What struggle to escape ? 

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstacy ? 

II. 
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on ; 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, 

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone ! 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; 
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 

Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve ; 
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair ! 



SELECTIONS FROM KEA TS. 4*3 

III. 
Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed 

Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu ; 
And, happy melodist, unwearied, 

Forever piping songs forever new ; 
More happy love ! more happy, happy love ! 

Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, 
Forever panting, and forever young ; 

All breathing human passion far above, 
That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloyed, 

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue, 

IV. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Leadest thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest ? 
What little town by river or sea shore, 

Or mountain built with peaceful citadel, 
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn ? 

And, little town, thy streets forever more 
Will silent be ; and not a soul to tell 

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 



O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 

Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 
With forest branches and the trodden weed ; 

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 
As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral ! 

When old age shall this generation waste, ¥ 

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayest, 
" Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all 

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. 

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, 
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; 
Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 



414 THE MODERX EXGLISH PERIOD, 

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne 

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : 

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 

When a new planet swims into his ken ; 

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 

He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 

Looked at each other with a wild surmise — 

Silent, upon a peak in Dariem 



Cbapter «♦ 

Recent Writers. — 1830. 

THE year 1830 may conveniently be regarded as 
beginning the latest literary epoch of England. Within 
the limits of a few years, events are thickly clustered 
about it which mark the breaking up of old conditions 
and the establishment of new. 

By 1830 that extraordinary outburst of poetic genius 
which began during the closing years of the preceding 
The New Era century had spent its force. Wordsworth, 
in Literature. Coleridge, and Southey still lived, indeed, 
but their work was done, while the recent and un- 
timely deaths of Keats, Shelley, and Byron had made 
a sudden gap in English poetry. Into the firma- 
ment thus strangely left vacant of great lights, there 
rose a new star. It was in 1830 that Alfred Tennyson, 
the representative English poet of our era, definitely 
entered the literary horizon by the publication of his 
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. After him great writers of the 
new r era crowd in quick succession, and the next ten 
years see the advent of Robert Browning {Pauline, 1833), 
Elizabeth Barrett — afterwards Mrs. Browning — (Prome- 
theus Bound, 1833), Charles Dickens {Sketches by Boc, 



RECENT WRITERS. 4 T 5 

1834), William Makepeace Thackeray (Yelloivplush Papers, 
1837), and Jo/in Ruskin [Salsette and ElepJianta, 1839). 

The year 1830 is likewise an important one in spheres 
of thought and action inseparably connected with the 
literature of the time. The revolutionary The New Era 
spirit, temporarily repressed in the conser- in Hlstor y- 
vative reaction that followed the Congress of Vienna, 
came again to the surface. It was in 1830 that the 
Bourbon king, Charles X., was driven from the throne 
of France, an event which awakened in Germany a 
fervor of democratic feeling which had been but half 
suppressed. In England the same drift towards social 
change over-rode the more conservative element ; the 
year 1832 made an epoch in the advance of democracy 
by the passage of a Reform Bill which greatly increased 
the political power of the people, and prepared the way 
for those extensive changes in government which have 
marked her subsequent history. 

From this same period, too, date many of those 
important changes in the outward conditions of daily 
life which have followed the application of modern 
science to directly practical ends. In 1830 the Liverpool 
and Manchester Railway went into operation, the first 
railroad opened in England ; the first electric telegraph 
followed in 1837, and steam communication with the 
United States was begun in the following year. > 

Nor was this year 1830 unproductive in that scientific 
investigation, the results of which have influenced enor- 
mously the literary spirit of our time. Sir The New Era 
Charles LyelFs Principles of Geology (1830), inScience - 
expanding men's imagination by its revelation of the 
vast duration of the earth's past, was one of the first of 
those many books of science which during the past half 
century have combined to modify some of our funda- 
mental ideas of life. 



4 l6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

* 

Thus this epoch ushered in a new literature, amid new 
hopes for human progress, at a time when science seemed 
to be miraculously transforming the very conditions of 
existence, as well as indefinitely extending the bounds of 
human knowledge. 

Any attempt to gain a comprehensive view of the 
literary period thus begun, presents almost insurmount- 
able difficulties, even if it were possible within our 
present limits. The period has been one of immense 
literary productiveness ; and our attention is distracted 
and our judgment confused by the vast number of 
writers, so near to us that it is impossible for us to see 
them in any proper perspective. We will select a few 
representative writers from the many whose names are 
familiar to us, and try to learn something of them and 
of their relation to their time. 
^ .- The practical and prosperous temper of an England 
that fifty years ago seemed entering on a period of solid 
Thomas Bab- comfort and prosperity, is admirably rep- 
ington Macauiay. resented by the brilliant essayist and his- 
torian, Thomas Babington Macauiay (i 800-1 859). From 
his first publication, an essay on Milton in the Edinburgh 
Review, 1825, Macaulay's career was one of unbroken and 
well deserved success. He was successful as statesman 
and as author. He was courted and admired in the most 
distinguished circles, and his extensive reading, phe- 
nomenal memory, and brilliant conversation helped to 
make him a social and literary leader. He thoroughly 
enjoyed the world and the age in which he found him- 
self, finding it full of substantial comforts and a sensible 
and rational progress. To his shrewd and practical in- 
telligence the spiritual alternations, the mysterious rap- 
tures and despairs of finer and more ethereal natures, must 
have been wholly unintelligible. He felt, to use his own 
oft-quoted phrase, that " an acre in Middlesex is better 



MA CA ULA Y AND CARL YLE. 4 1 7 

than a principality in Utopia." But if Macaulay, like 
the vast majority of men, was too prone to regard the 
best things of life as capable of exact statement in the 
tables of statistics, his work has a positive and enduring 
value. His essays dealt with many subjects in history 
and literature. The impetuous rush and eloquence of 
their style, their picturesqueness, fascination, and spark- 
ling antithesis, won for them innumerable readers. 
Thousands found in them information which they would 
never have gained if presented in a longer and less attract- 
ive form, and Macaulay thus became to the widening 
reading public the great popular educator of his time. 
Addison had declared that he would bring philosophy 
out of the closet and make it dwell in clubs and coffee- 
houses ; Macaulay announced, before publishing his 
History of England, that he would write a history which 
should take the place of the last new novel on every 
lady's table. And both men kept their word. 

The attitude towards life and his own age of Thomas 
Carlyle (i 795-1881) was a widely different one. Life to 
him was a matter of grim and tragic earnest, 

. f ° Thomas Carlyle. 

and so far from yielding himself to any easy 
enjoyment of it, Carlyle rather seems to cry out to a faith- 
less and blinded generation as some stern prophet of 
the desert. "Woe unto them," he declares in his essay 
on Scott, " woe unto them that are at ease ill Zion." 
Thomas Carlyle was the son of a shrewd, hard working 
stone mason of strong convictions and great uprightness 
of character. The Carlyle family is described by one of 
the neighbors as " pithy, bitter-speakin' bodies, and 
awfu' fechters," while according to Carlyle himself they 
were remarkable for " their brotherly affection and co- 
herence, for their hard sayings and hard strikings."* 
Thomas Carlyle was the true descendant of this sterling 

* Carlyle's " Reminiscenses," p. 35. 



41 8 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

and granite stock. He was a conscientious and tireless 
worker ; in spite of a vein of harshness, in his strength, 
his earnestness, his sincerity, his profound tender- 
ness, a rare and beautiful nature. His early and en- 
thusiastic study of German literature and philosophy 
exercised a profound influence upon his views, and even 
affected his style of writing, which is powerful, but ec- 
centric in the extreme. His early works testify to the 
direction of his studies, his earliest being a translation of 
Goethe's Wilhelm Meister (1824), and his second a Life 
of Schiller (1825). In 1833 his Sartor Resartus began to 
appear in Fraser s Magazine. This characteristic book, 
with its grim humor, abruptness, and grotesqueness, 
broken by overpowering Currents of eloquence, found at 
first but few readers among a bewildered or indifferent 
public. It contains, however, the germ of Carlyle's 
philosophy, and many of his after works, such as The 
French Revolution, the lectures on Heroes and Hero Wor- 
ships or The Life and Letters of Cromwell, are but elabor- 
ate illustrations of the theory of history laid down in this 
earlier book. 

Carlyle represents in all its intensity, and with a touch 
of natural exaggeration, the reactionary protest against 
the shallowness and shams of the eighteenth century. 
His test of a man is, " Is he sincere ? " Unlike Macaulay, 
he had no enthusiasm for the advance of science or of 
democracy ; his view of life was profoundly ideal and 
religious. He distrusted science, declaring, " We have for- 
got the divineness in these laboratories of ours "; he dis- 
trusted material prosperity, writing in Sartor Resartns, 
" Not what I have but what I do is my kingdom." One 
great thing that he did was to make men see something 
divine and wonderful in things which before had seemed 
commonplace. 

As a writer, Carlyle stands alone. His style has been 



R USKIN AND RECENT PROSE. 4 1 9 

imitated, but never with more than very partial success. 
In spite, or perhaps because, of his many peculiarities, 
many of his prose passages rank with the greatest in the 
literature, and his French Revolution must remain one of 
the most vivid and impassioned of prose poems. 

The era has produced another great master of prose in 
the art critic and reformer, JoJin Ruskin ( 1 819-). Ruskin, 
when just out of Oxford, rose to sudden T L „ ,. 

J John Ruskin. 

distinction by his Modern Painters (vol. i. 
1843). This work, begun in defense of Turner, a great 
but then little appreciated landscape painter, far out- 
grew the limits of its original design. Whatever may be 
its value as a treatise on art, its elaborate and poetic 
beauty of style give it a hig!- place in literature. By 
numerous other works Ruskin has proved himself one of 
the great modern masters of English prose. In the 
truth and beauty of his descriptions of nature, he has 
expressed the same exquisite perception of the life of 
the world about us which colors our poetry, and which 
is one of the distinctions of our modern literature. 
Ruskin, like Carlyle, has denounced the money-making 
and material tendencies of latter-day England. This 
industrial age, with its factories, railroads, and telegraphs, 
has called forth some of his fiercest arraignments, and he 
has dwelt much on the ugliness which it has brought 
into life. Such writers as Macaulay, Carlyle, and Ruskin 
make us realize the greatness of our modern literature in 
the sphere of prose. These men, with Cardinal Newman 
and two writers of an earlier generation, the essayist, 
Thomas De Quincey (1 785-1 859), and Walter Savage 
Landor (1 775-1 864), entitle us to say, that while in poetry 
modern England has fallen behind the greatest achieve- 
ments of her past, in the art of prose writing she has 
certainly equaled, and probably surpassed, the produc- 
tions of any former period. 



420 THE MODERX EXGL1SH PERIOD. 

In no direction has this development of prose been 
more remarkable than in that of the novel, the distinc- 
The Growth of ^ ve literary form of the modern world, 
the Novel. Since the publication of Richardson's 

Pa/iicla in 1740, the range of the novel has immensely 
broadened, and its importance as a recognized factor 
in our intellectual and social life has surprisingly 
increased. William Godwin (1756-1836) employed the 
novel as a vehicle of opinion. His Caleb Williams (1794) 
was one of the earliest of these novels with a purpose, 
of which there are so many examples in later fiction. 
Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849), the author of Castle Rack- 
rent. The Absentee, Helen, and other novels, has been 
called the creator of the novel of national manners. By 
her pictures of Irish life she did somewhat the same 
service for that country that Scott was soon to perform 
for his beloved Scotland ; she gave it a place in literature. 
Shortly before Scott began to create the historical novel, 
Jane Austen (1775— 1817) began her finished and exquisite 
pictures of the daily domestic life of middle-class Eng- 
land, in Sense and Sensibility (1811). In these nc 
the ordinar\' aspects of life are depicted with the minute- 
ness and fidelity of the miniature painter, yet their 
charming and unfailing art saves the ordinary from 
becoming tiresome or commonplace. Miss Austen has 
found worthy successors, but no superiors in her chosen 
field. The Cranford of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1866) is 
a masterly stud}- of the little world of English provincial 
life, as are the C es :f Carl %ferd of Margaret 

Oliphant 11823-1. .Air.-. Gaskell is further remembered 
for work of a more tragic and powerful order than the 
quaint and pathetic humor of Cranford. Her first novel, 
Mary Barton (1848), laid bare before the reading world 
the obscure life and struggles of the poor who toiled 
in the great manufactories of Manchester. Perhaps the 



THE NOVEL : CHARLES DLCKENS. 4 2 i 

subject is too monotonous and too mournful for the 
highest art, but the book bears on every page the evi- 
dence of insight and of truth. 

The Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet (1849), °f CJiarles 
Kingslcy, the story of a London apprentice who becomes 
involved in the Chartist agitations, shows the same sym- 
pathetic interest in the heavy burdens of the poor, and 
in that unhappy antagonism between employer and 
employed which remains one of the unsettled problems 
of our time. This widening of the sphere of the novel 
to include the trials or tragedies of the humblest phases 
of life, is a further evidence of that broadening sympathy 
with the race of man, which we have seen grow stronger 
in the poetry of the preceding century as ideas of democ- 
racy gained in power. 

But the life of the outcast and the poor has found 
its most famous, if not its* most truthful 

1 -i /-/ / r\ ■ t 1 c o \ Charles Dickens. 

chronicler in Charles Dickens (18 12- 1870), 
one of the greatest novelists of the epoch. Dickens was 
the second of eight children. His earliest associations 
were with the humbler and harsher side of life in a 
metropolis, as his father, John Dickens, a clerk in the 
Navy Pay-Office, was transferred from Portsmouth to 
London in 18 14. The knowledge thus hardly gained 
through early struggles and privations, became a store- 
house from which Dickens drew freely in his later work. 
The Marshalsea Prison, where John Dickens was confined 
for debt, is described in Little Dorrit; in David Copper- 
field, the most autobiographical of the novels, David's 
experiences as a wine merchant's apprentice may have 
been suggested by Warren's Blacking Factory, where 
Dickens worked as a boy, while his youthful struggles with 
shorthand and reporting are reflected in Copperfield's 
later history. Remembering the great novelist's early 
experience, it seems but natural that he should have 



42 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

chosen to let in the sun and air on some of the shabbier 
and darker phases of existence, depicting many social 
gradations, from obscure respectability through the 
vagrants and adventurers in the outer circles of society, 
down, as in Oliver 7W^(i 837-1 838), to the very dens and 
devices of open crime. There is Jo, the London street 
waif of Bleak House (185 2-1 85 3), "allers a movin' on"; 
Jingle, the gay and voluble impostor of Pickwick (1836— 
1837); and that questionable fraternity, the Birds of Prey, 
that flit about the dark places of the Thames in Our 
Mutual Friend (1 864-1 865). Yet through this portrayal 
of the under strata of society, there runs a strong, perhaps 
a sometimes too apparent, moral purpose. Take us 
where he will, Dickens's art is always pure, sound, and 
wholesome. 

It is as a humorist that Dickens is at his best. There 
is a whimsical and ludicrous extravagance in his humor, 
an irresistible ingenuity in the ridiculous, peculiar to 
him alone. From the time when a delighted people 
waited in rapturous impatience for the forthcoming 
number of Pickwick, to the publication of the unfinished 
Edwin Drood (1870), nineteenth century England laid 
aside her weariness and her problems to join in Dickens's 
overflowing, infectious laughter. When we are ungrate- 
ful enough to be critical of one who has rested so many 
by his genial and kindly fun, we must admit that Dickens 
was neither a profound or truthful interpreter of life and 
character. His is for the most part a world of caricature, 
peopled, not with real living persons, but with eccen- 
tricities and oddities, skillfully made to seem like flesh 
and blood. We know them from some peculiarity of 
speech or manner, some oft-repeated phrase ; they are 
painted from without ; we are rarely enabled to get inside 
of their lives, and look out at the world through their 
eyes. The result is often but a clever and amusing bur- 



WILL I A M MA KEPEA CE THA CKERA Y. 423 

lesque of life, not life itself. It may also be admitted 
that we feel at times in Dickens the absence of that 
atmosphere of refinement and cultivation which is an 
unobtrusive but inseparable part of the art of Thackeray. 
Without detracting from some famous and beautiful 
scenes," Dickens's pathos is often forced and premeditated, 
his sentiment shallow, while there are heights from which 
he is manifestly shut out. When he attempts to draw a 
gentleman, or an average mortal distinguished by no 
special absurdities, the result is apt to be singularly 
insipid and lifeless. Notwithstanding these shortcom- 
ings, Dickens has won notable successes outside the field 
of pure humor. His Tale of Two Cities (1859) ls a 
powerful story, quite different from his usual manner, 
and many scenes throughout his other books, as the 
famous description of the storm in David Copperfield, are 
triumphs of tragic power. 

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) is the keen 
but kindly satirist of that surface world of frivolity and 
fashion into which the art of Dickens so wiinam Make- 
seldom penetrates. Thackeray was born at peace ac eray ' 
Calcutta, but was early sent to England for his education. 
He had something of that regular training which Dickens 
lacked, going to Cambridge from the Charterhouse School 
in London. He left college, however, shortly after 
entering, to study art on the Continent, and finally, 
losing his money, he returned to England, and about 
1837 drifted into literature. After writing much for 
periodicals, he made his first great success in Vanity Fair 
(1847- 1 848). I 11 tn i s book, under its satiric and humorous 
delineation of a world of hollowness and pretense, runs 
the strong current of a deep and serious purpose. 
" Such people there are," Thackeray writes, stepping 
" down from the platform," like his master, Fielding, to 
speak in his own person — " such people there are, liv- 



424 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

ing and flourishing in- the world — Faithless, Hopeless, 
Charityless ; let us have at them, dear friends, with 
might and main. Some there are, and very successful, 
too, mere quacks and fools ; and it was to combat and 
expose such as these, no doubt, that laughter was made.'' * 
The passage is better than any outside comment on 
the spirit of Thackeray's work; only the shallow and 
undiscriminating reader fails to see that Thackeray's 
seriousness is deeper and more vital than his cynicism ; 
that though the smile of the man of the world be on his 
lips, few hearts are more gentle, more compassionate, 
more tender ; that though he is quick to scorn, few 
eyes have looked out on this unintelligible world through 
more kindly or more honest tears. Satirist as he is, he 
kneels with the genuine and whole-souled devotion of 
Chaucer, of Shakespeare, and of Milton, before the simple 
might of innocence and of goodness. In the midst of 
this world of Vanity Fair, with its pettiness, its knavery, 
and its foolishness, he places the unspoilt Amelia and 
the honest and faithful Major Dobbin. If in Pendennis 
Ave have the world as it looks to the idlers in the major's 
club windows, we have also Laura, and " Pen's " confiding 
mother, apart from it, and unspotted by its taint. But 
more beautiful than all other creations of Thackeray's 
reverent and loving nature, is the immortal presence of 
Colonel Newcome, the man whose memory we hold 
sacred as that of one we have loved — the strong, humble, 
simple-minded gentleman, the grizzled soldier with the 
heart of a little child. In such characters Thackeray, too, 
preaches to us, in his own fashion, the old lesson dear 
to lofty souls, that 

" Virtue can be assailed, but never hurt, 

Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled." f 

* "Vanity Fair," vol. i. chap. viii. 

f Milton's " Comus," see pp. 220-221, supra. 



GEORGE ELIOT. 4 2 5 

So he echoes Scott's dying injunction to Lockhart : 
"Be a good man, my dear," by showing us, in the 
corruption of much that is mean and vile, that beauty of 
holiness which can 

" Redeem nature from the general curse," 

that fair flower of simple goodness which, blossoming in 
tangled and thorny ways, sweetens for us the noisome 
places of the earth. 

In addition to his work as painter of contemporary 
manners, Thackeray has enriched the literature by two 
remarkable historical novels, Henry Esmond (1852) and 
its sequel, The Virginians (1857-1859). In the first of 
these we have the fruits of Thackeray's careful and 
loving study of eighteenth century England, a period 
with which he was especially identified, and which he 
had treated critically with extraordinary charm and 
sympathy in his Lectures on the English Humorists (pub. 
1853). Esmond is one of the greatest, possibly the 
greatest historical novel in English fiction. The story 
is supposed to be told by Esmond himself, and the book 
seems less that of a modern writing about the past than 
the contemporary record of the past itself. Nothing is 
more wonderful in it, than the art with which Thackeray 
abandons his usual manner to identify himself with the 
narrator he has created. Yet in this, perhaps, we should 
rather see the real tender-hearted Thackeray, his thin 
veil of cynicism thrown aside. 

Thackeray's style is exceptionally finished and charm- 
ing; light, graceful, and incisive, it places him among the 
greatest prose masters of English fiction. 
/ Among the many women who have gained distinction 
as writers of fiction since the appearance of Miss Burney's 
Evelina (1778), one at least cannot be passed over even 
in the briefest survey. George Eliot {Mary Ann Evans, 



4 2 6 THE MODERN EXGLISH PERIOD. 

1820-188 1) stands easily in the front rank of English 
novelists, and must, moreover, be recognized as one of the 
George Eiiot, most representative and influential writers 
1820-1881. f the latter half of the century. She was 

born at Chilvers Coton Parish, in Warwickshire, the county 
of intermingled Celt and English that has given so much 
to literature. Her father, like the elder Carlyle, was a 
plain, capable, practical man ; one of those who do the 
world's work faithfully and silently. His daughter has 
preserved for us some traits of his strong, simple nature 
in the character of Caleb Garth, in Middlemarch. Much 
of George Eliot's best work deals with those phases of 
English provincial life among which many of her early 
years were passed. With a broader scope, a freer and 
more masculine handling than that of any writer who had 
preceded her in the field, by such novels as Adam Bede 
(1859), The Mill on the Floss (i860), and Middlemarch 
(1871-1872), she is as emphatically the great painter of Eng- 
lish country life as Dickens is of the slums and of the 
poor, or Thackeray of club life and of fashion. Romola, 
an historical novel of the Florence of Savonarola, is her 
one notable departure from her chosen sphere. George 
Eliot's work fills us with an intense sense of reality. Her 
characters are substantial, living people, drawn with a 
Shakesperean truth and insight. In order to interest us in 
them she is not forced, as Dickens was, to rely on out- 
ward eccentricities. In Tom and Maggie Tulliver, in 
Dorothea Brooke, in Tito Melema, or in Gwendolen 
Harleth, we enter into and identify ourselves with the 
inner experiences of a human soul. These and the other 
great creations of George Eliot's genius are not set char- 
acters ; like ourselves, they are subject to change, acted 
upon by others, acting on others in their turn; molded 
by the daily pressure of things within and things without. 
We are made to understand the growth or the degener- 



RECENT FOE TRY. 4 2 7 

ation of their souls ; how Tito slips half consciously down 
the easy slopes of self-indulgence, or Romola learns 
through suffering to ascend the heights of self-renunci- 
ation. The novels of George Eliot move under a heavy 
weight of tragic earnestness ; admirable as is their art, 
graphic and telling as is their humor, they are weighed 
down with a burden of philosophic teaching, which in the 
later books, especially Daniel Deronda, grows too heavy 
for the story, and injures the purely literary value. The 
duty of giving up personal enjoyment to forward the prog- 
ress of the race is a doctrine often inculcated, and one 
in keeping with many modern aspirations. But quite 
aside from their teaching, it is the art of these great 
books, their poetic beauty of style, their subtle under- 
standing of the lives of men and women, that places 
them with the great imaginative productions of the 
literature. 

While the life and aspirations of our age find their 
most popular and influential interpretation in the novel, 
the Victorian era has made some lasting ad- 

... * , r t^ 1 • i Recent Poetry. 

ditions to the great body of English poetry. 
Poetry has been studied and practiced as an art with a 
care which recalls the age of Anne, and even minor writers 
have acquired an extraordinary finish, and a mastery of 
novel poetic forms. This attention to form is commonly 
thought to have begun with Keats, and since 1830 
Tennyson has proved himself one of the most versatile 
and consummate artists in the history of English verse. 
As is usual in periods of scrupulous and conscious art, 
this recent poetry has been graceful or meditative, rather 
than powerful and passionate. It excels in the lyric 
rather than in the dramatic form ; it delights in express- 
ing the poet's own shifting moods, and, as a rule, it leaves 
to the novel the vigorous objective portrayal of life. 
It finds a relief in escaping from the confined air of our 



428 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

modern life into the freedom and simplicity of nature, 
and it has never lost that subtle and inspired feeling for 
the mystery of the visible world which came into poetry 
in the previous century. The supremacy of science and 
the advance of democracy, the two motive forces in Eng- 
lish life and thought since 1830, have acted on modern 
poetry" in different ways. There are poets who think 
themselves fallen on evil days ; who, repelled by the sor- 

The Poetry of didness, ugliness, and materialism of a scien- 
Evasion. t j£ c an( j mercan tile generation, seek to escape 

in poetry to a world less vulgar and more to their minds. 
Like Keats, they ignore the peculiar hopes and perplex- 
ities of their age, to wander after the all-sufficient spirit 
of beauty. This tendency is seen in the early classic 
poems of Matthew Arnold (\ 822-1 888), in the Atalanta in 
Calydon of Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-), or m tne 
poems of those associated with the English Pre-Raph- 
aellite brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1 828-1 882) 
with his odor of Italy, and his rich and curious felicity of 
phrase. This poetry of evasion, as it may be called, is 
seen also in the early work of William Morris (1834-), in 
his classic study, The Life a?id Death offason (1867), and 
in his Earthly Paradise (1 868-1 870), a gathering of 
beautiful stories from the myths and legends of many 
lands. 

Other poets, unsettled by doubts which have come 
with modern science, and unable to reconcile faith to 

The Poetry of t ^ ie new knowledge of their time, carry into 
Doubt. their work that uncertainty and unbelief 

which is the moral disease of their generation. The 
most characteristic poetry of Matthew Arnold is the 
outcome of this mood. In his Stanzas from the Grande 
Chartreuse, Obermann, Heine's Grave, and many other 
poems, we see a man at odds with his time, unwilling to 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 429 

doubt, yet unable to believe. Through his refined, 
scholarly, and well nigh faultless verse, there runs a for- 
lorn and pathetic bravery sadder than open despair. 
Somewhat the same tone is present, but animated by a 
strain of greater faith and hope, in the poems of Arnold's 
friend, Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), a man of genius 
and of promise, while James Thomson's City of Dreadful 
Night (1874) is the poetry of despair. 

Happily the two greatest and most representative 
poets of our epoch, Alfred Tennyson and Robert Brown- 
ing, belong to neither of these groups. ^he Poetry of 
Differing widely in manner and in their Faith and Hope, 
theory of art, they have at least one point in common. 
Both face frankly and boldly the many questions of their 
age ; neither evading nor succumbing to its intellectual 
difficulties, they still find beauty and goodness in the life 
of the world about them ; holding fast the " things which 
are not seen " as a present reality, they still cherish " the 
faith which looks through death." 

The slightest acquaintance with the poetry of Alfred 
Tennyson (1809-1892), assures us that he is first of all 
the consummate artist. He has brought to 

, f , . 11 1 1 Alfred Tennyson. 

the service ot his art all that can be gathered 
by the life-long study of the great productions of the past, 
all that can be gained by the most patient and skillful cul- 
tivation of great natural gifts. He represents the best 
traditions of literature as truly as Browning represents a 
distinctly radical element, and in his work, as in that of 
Milton, the scholar is constantly delighted by re- 
miniscences of his study of the great poets of an- 
tiquity. Tennyson's perfect mastery of his art is 
shown in the extraordinary scope and variety of his 
work, for few poets have won success in so many 
different fields. 



43° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

His lyrics, from the early metrical experiments of 

Claribel and Lilian to Crossing the Bar, or the songs in The 

as a Lyric Foresters (1892), make up a body of lyrical 

Poet - work unequaled in melody or beauty by any 

poet of our time. The songs scattered through The 

Princess are as faultless as they are famous. 

"I have led her home, my love, my only friend," 

in Maud, is one of the noblest love-lyrics of the language, 
not inferior to the rapturous and familiar Garden Song 
in the same poem. 

Like many poets of his time, Tennyson has dealt with 
classical themes ; winning notable success in The Lotos- 
Eaters with its contrast study, Ulysses, in 

Classic Poems. ^^ . 

CEnone, Tithonus, Lucretius, and other 
poems of the same order. But even here Tennyson is 
modern rather than Greek, infusing into old-world myth 
or story the moods and aspirations peculiar to his time. 
He has shown us the narrow asceticism of the Middle 
Ages in St. Simon Stylites, its higher religious aspira- 
tion in St. Agnes' s Eve, and his longest poem, 

Medievalism. & . ' far 

The Idyls of the King, preserves at least 
the outward garb of mediaeval chivalry. The Rec- 
ollections of the Arabian Nights is a dreamy revelation of 
the imagined splendors of the Orient, while The Gar- 
dener s Daughter, The Miller s Daugliter, and Dora, are 
exquisite idyls of contemporary England. Only in the 
drama can Tennyson be said to have distinctly fallen be- 
low his high standard of excellence, yet even here his 
failure is only comparative and easily explained by many 
extenuating circumstances. Yet while Tennyson's sub- 
jects are thus drawn from many centuries and many lands, 
he is distinctly the spokesman of his time. 

Locksley Hall (published in 1842) is aflame with those 
new hopes of progress which, at the beginning of our 



TENNYSON AND HIS TIME. 431 

epoch, had replaced the cynical despair of Byron. Its 
hero saw science trembling on the verge of mighty dis- 
coveries ; he 

" dipt into the future far as human eye could see, 
Saw the Vision of the World, and all the wonder that would be." 

It is the poem of democracy, and while it cries out 
against " the jingling of the guinea," and " the social lies 
that warp us from the living truth," it looks forward to a 
time of universal brotherhood and peace, when 

11 — the war drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furled, 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 

And as Tennyson here expresses his age's young enthu- 
siasm, he likewise expresses in Locksley Hall Sixty Years 
After that disappointment at the real or apparent failure 
of its early hopes which characterizes our later times. 
The cry of the first poem is " Forward " ; that of the 
second, the scornful echo of the watchword of an 
imagined progress : 

" Gone the cry of Forward, Forward — lost within a growing gloom ; 
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb. 
Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space, 
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage, into commonest common- 
place." 

The faithfulness of the two Locksley Halls to the mood 
of their respective times might be further illustrated, 
but enough has been said to indicate their representative 
character. 

The mood of despondency in the later poem is, how- 
ever, entirely foreign to the predominant spirit of Tenny- 
son's work.. In general he is the poet of progress. After 
the reckless license and fierce enthusiasms of Byron, after 
Shelley's glorious but intangible dreams of social recon- 
struction, we have in Tennyson the poet of a rational 



43 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

and definite progress, an advance to be gradually gained 
through established social and political institutions. 
He doubts not that 

" Through the ages one increasing purpose runs ; " * 
he rejoices in 

"A land of settled government, 
A land of just and old renown, 
Where Freedom slowly broadens down 
From precedent to precedent." t 

It is impossible to dwell here on the many ways in which 
Tennyson's work binds him to his time. He is one with 
it in his feeling for science and the supremacy of law ; 
its questionings are embodied in In Memoriam (1850), 
the most profound and original of his poems. Notwith- 
standing some, traces of despondency in certain of his 
later poems, he is from first to last the undaunted singer 
of faith and hope, beholding with unwavering vision, 

" That God, which ever lives and loves, 
One God, one Law, one element 
And one far-off, divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." \ 

Tennyson's ultimate place in English poetry is, of course, 
a matter of individual conjecture. He has not that 
fresh and original power which makes the poetry of 
Shakespeare, Wordsworth, or Browning the breath of a 
new revelation, but it seems probable that he will hold 
a high place among the poets of the second rank. With 
an art that is well nigh flawless, with a lofty and beauti- 
ful ideal of life, he has worn worthily the 

" laurel greener from the brows 
Of him who uttered nothing base." § 

* " Locksley Hall." 

f From poem beginning " You ask me why tho' ill at ease." 

\ ". In Memoriam," conclusion. 

§ " Dedication to the Queen." 



ROBER T BRO WNING. 433 

While no recent English poet is so broadly representa- 
tive as Tennyson, Robert Browning (181 2-1889) has been 
a guide and an inspiration to many, espe- 

, ,, , , r , iril . Robert Browning. 

cially m the latter part of our era, fulfilling 
as no other has done the deepest spiritual needs of his 
generation. From the first, Browning's genius has 
been more bold, irregular, and independent than that of 
Tennyson ; he has been less responsive to the changing 
mood of his time ; he has rather proved the leader of it, 
taking his own way unmoved by praise or blame, and 
at last compelling others to follow him. Browning 
has been one of the most prolific of English poets. 
His work covers more than half a century of almost 
incessant production {Pauline, i8$$-Aso/ando, 1889), 
and in sheer bulk and intellectual vigor shows a creative 
energy hardly surpassed by any English poet since Shake- 
speare. This vast body of poetry forms a unique contri- 
bution to literature. It is consistent in aim, apparently 
uninfluenced by the changing phases of contemporary 
thought ; in the main it is built up round a few central 
ideas, clearly grasped at the start and adhered to until 
the end. It is independent and often eccentric in style, 
composed in defiance of the prevailing theory of art ; it 
rises solitary, abrupt, rugged, and powerful, from an age 
of fluent, graceful, and melodious verse. Browning is no 

" idle singer of an empty day," 

but a profound and original genius, facing in deadly 
earnest men's "obstinate questionings " of life and of 
death. 

To Browning the only explanation of the mystery of 
this present life is to be found in its relation to a future 
one. To him, God, the soul, and personal immortality 
are the fundamental and all-important facts. Life and 
the development of the soul are to be studied in their 



434 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

relations to future regions of activity, and only thus do 
the uses of error and of suffering become intelligible. 
The study of the individual soul, especially at some crisis 
in its development, the habitual interpretation of life 
from the eternal rather than the temporal or earthly 
aspect, are accordingly characteristic of Browning's 
work. The spirit of such poetry is directly opposite to 
that of Shakespeare, who planted himself firmly on the 
solid earth, and this difference is illustrative of the con- 
trast between Elizabethan and Victorian England. Men 
and Women (1855) contains many of the best of Brown- 
ing's shorter poems, while The Ring and the Book (1868) 
is the most considerable and surprising poetic achieve- 
ment of the century. As a master of verse Browning is 
distinctly inferior to Tennyson, yet hostile and careless 
readers are apt to greatly undervalue his purely poetic 
gifts. In the songs in Paracelsus (1835) an d Pippa 
Passes (1841), and in many other charming lyrics, he has 
shown us that 

" He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver." * 

But his greatest triumphs have been won in quite 
different poetic forms from those to which the smooth 
and facile art of the day has made us accustomed. His 
shorter narrative poems, Ivan Ivanovitch, Martin Relph, 
Mule'ykeh, have often a graphic vigor unequaled by any 
recent poet, and few poets of any age can approach him 
in the subtle art with which he makes a soul naturally 
reveal its inmost recesses. He has enlarged the province 
of poetry by the daring originality of his poetic methods, 
and his view of life is the most stimulating and spiritual 
of any English poet, not excepting Milton. 

Browning is a thinker and teacher in verse, and in many 
cases argument and philosophy are suffered to crowd out 
* " One Word More," in " Men and Women." 



SELECTION FROM CARL YLE. 435 

that beauty which is the soul of true art. But in spite of 
his intellectual force and intense moral purpose, he has 
the poet's sensuousness and the poet's intensity. He is 
no mere reasoner in verse, but the most profoundly pas- 
sionate-singer of his time, and while much of his work will 
doubtless decline in importance, he has made great and 
permanent additions to the literature of his country. 

Thus in a great English poet of our own day we find 
that deep religious earnestness, that astounding force, 
which we noted in those English tribes who nearly 
fifteen centuries ago began to possess themselves of the 
land of Britain. Henry Morley reminds us that the 
opening lines of Caedmon's Creation, the first words of 
English literature on English soil, are words of praise to 
the Almighty Maker of all things. After reviewing in 
outline the long and splendid history of the literature 
thus solemnly begun, we find in the two greatest poet 
voices of our own day, Alfred Tennyson and Robert 
Browning, the note of an invincible faith, an undimin- 
ished hope, we find them affirming in the historic spirit 
of the English race, 

" Thy soul and God stand sure." 

SELECTION FROM CARLYLE. 

ROBERT BURNS. 

From "Heroes and Hero Worship." 
It was a curious phenomenon, in the withered, unbelieving, second- 
hand eighteenth century, that of a Hero starting up, among the arti- 
ficial pasteboard figures and productions, in the guise of a Robert 
Barns. Like a little well in the rocky desert places, — like a sudden 
splendour of Heaven in the artificial Vauxhall ! People knew not what 
to make of it. They took it for a piece of the Vauxhall fire-work ; 
alas, it let itself be so taken, though struggling half-blindly, as in bit- 
terness of death, against that ! Perhaps no man had such a false 
reception from his fellow.-men. Once more a very wasteful life-drama 
was enacted under the sun. 



43<5 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

The tragedy of Burns's life'is known to all of you. Surely, we may say, 
if discrepancy between place held and place merited constitute perverse- 
ness of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse than Burns's. 
Among those secondhand acting-figures, mimes for the most part, of 
the eighteenth century, once more a giant Original Man ; one of those 
men who reach down to the perennial Deeps, who take rank with the 
heroic among men : and he was born in a poor Ayrshire hut. The 
largest soul of all the British lands came among us in the shape of a 
hard-handed Scottish Peasant. 

His Father, a poor toiling man, tried various things ; did not succeed 
in any ; was involved in continual difficulties. The Steward, Factor as 
the Scotch call him, used to send letters and threatenings, Burns 
says, " which threw us all into tears." The brave, hard-toiling, hard- 
suffering Father, his brave heroine of a wife ; and those children, of 
whom Robert was one ! In this Earth, so wide otherwise, no shelter 
for them. The letters " threw us all into tears " : figure it. The 
brave Father, I say always ; — a silent Hero and Poet ; without whom 
the son had never been a speaking one ! Burns's Schoolmaster came 
afterwards to London, learnt what good society was ; but declares 
that in no meeting of men did he ever enjoy better discourse than at 
the hearth of this peasant. And his poor " seven acres of nursery 
ground, " — not that, nor the miserable patch of clay-farm, nor anything 
he tried to get .a living by, would prosper with him ; he had a sore 
unequal battle all his days. But he stood to it valiantly ; a wise, 
faithful, unconquerable man ; — swallowing-down how many sore suf- 
ferings daily into silence ; fighting like an unseen Hero, — nobody pub- 
lishing newspaper paragraphs about his nobleness ; voting pieces of 
plate to him ! However, he was not lost ; nothing is lost. Robert is 
there ; the outcome of him ; — and indeed of many generations of such 
as him. 

This Burns appeared under every disadvantage : uninstructed, 
poor, born only to hard manual toil ; and writing, when it came to 
that, in a rustic special dialect, known only to a small province of the 
country he lived in. Had he written, even what he did write, in the 
general language of England, I doubt not he had already become 
universally recognized as being, or capable to be, one of our greatest 
men. That he should have tempted so many to penetrate through 
the rough husk of that dialect of his, is proof that there lay something 
far from common within it. He has gained a certain recognition, 
and is continuing to do so over all quarters of our wide Saxon world : 
wheresoever a Saxon dialect is spoken, it begins to be understood, by 



CARL YLE ON B URNS. 43 7 

personal inspection of this and the other, that one of the most consid- 
erable Saxon men of the eighteenth century was an Ayrshire peasant 
named Robert Burns. Yes, I will say, here too was a piece of the 
right Saxon stuff: strong as the Harz-rock, rooted in the depths of 
the world ; — rock, yet with wells of living softness in it ! A wild, 
impetuous whirlwind of passion and faculty slumbered quiet there ; 
such heavenly melody dwelling in the heart of it. A noble, rough 
genuineness ; homely, rustic, honest ; true simplicity of strength, with 
its lightning-fire, with its soft dewy pity ; — like the old Norse Thor, the 
Peasant-god ! — 

Burns's brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, has told 
me that Robert, in his young days, in spite of their hardship, was 
usually the gayest of speech ; a fellow of infinite frolic, laughter, 
sense, and heart ; far pleasanter to hear there, stript cutting peats in 
the bog, or such like, than he ever afterwards knew him. I can well 
believe it. This basis of mirth (" fond gaillard" as old Marquis 
Mirabeau calls it), a primal element of sunshine and joyfulness, 
coupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one of the most 
attractive characteristics of Burns. A large fund of hope dwells in 
him ; spite of his tragical history, he is not a mourning man. He 
shakes his sorrows gallantly aside ; bounds forth victorious over them. 
It is as the lion shaking "dew-drops from his mane"; as the swift- 
bounding horse that laughs at the shaking of the spear. But, indeed, 
Hope, Mirth, of the sort like Burns's, are they not the outcome properly 
of warm, generous affection, — such as is the beginning of all to every 
man ? 

You would think it strange if I called Burns the most gifted 
British soul we had in all that century of his : and yet I believe the 
day is coming when there will be little danger in saying so. His 
writings, all that he did under such obstructions, are only a poor 
fragment of him. Professor Stewart remarked very justly, what, in- 
deed, is true of all Poets good for much, that his poetry was not any 
particular faculty ; but the general result of a naturally vigorous 
original mind expressing itself in that way. Burns's gifts, expressed 
in conversation, are the theme of all that ever heard him. All 
kinds of gifts : from the gracefulest utterances of courtesy, to the 
highest fire of passionate speech ; loud floods of mirth, soft wailings 
of affection, laconic emphasis, clear piercing insight; all was in him. 
Witty duchesses celebrate him as a man whose speech " led them off 
their feet." This is beautiful ; but still more beautiful that which 
Mr. Lockhart has recorded, which I have more than once alluded to, 



43 8 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

How the waiters and ostlers at inns would get out of bed, and come 
crowding to hear this man speak ! Waiters and ostlers ; — they too 
were men, and here was a man ! I have heard much about his 
speech ; but one of the best things I ever heard of it was, last year, 
from a venerable gentleman long familiar with him. That it was 
speech distinguished by always having something in it. " He spoke 
rather little than much," this old man told me ; " sat rather silent in 
those early days, as in the company of persons above him ; and always 
when he did speak, it was to throw new light on the matter." I 
know not why anyone should ever speak otherwise !— But if we look 
at his general force of soul, his healthy robustness every way, the 
rugged downrightness, penetration, generous valour and manfulness 
that was in him, — when shall we readily find a better-gifted man ? 

Among the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I sometimes feel as 
if Burns might be found to resemble Mirabeau more than any other. 
They differ widely in vesture ; yet look at them intrinsically. There is 
the same burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul ; — built, in both 
cases, on what the old marquis calls ^.fondgaillard. By nature, by 
course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of 
bluster ; a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of 
Mirabeau too is veracity and sense, power of true ins/ght, superior- 
ity of vision. The thing that he says is worth remembering. It is a 
flash of insight into some object or other; so do both these men 
speak. The same raging passions ; capable too in both of mani- 
festing themselves as the tenderest noble affections. Wit, wild 
laughter, energy, directness, sincerity ; these were in both. The 
types of the two men are not dissimilar. Burns too could have 
governed, debated in National Assemblies ; politicized, as few could. 
Alas, the courage which had to exhibit itself in capture of smuggling 
schooners in the Solway Frith ; in keeping silence over so much, where 
no good speech, but only inarticulate rage was possible ; this might 
have bellowed forth Ushers de Breze and the like ; and made itself 
visible to all men, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling of great ever- 
memorable epochs! But they said to him reprovingly, his Official 
Superiors said, and wrote : ' You are to work, not think.' Of your 
thiuhing-faculty, the greatest in this land, we have no need ; you are 
to gauge beer there ; for that only are you wanted. Very notable; — 
and worth mentioning, though we know what is to be said and an- 
swered! As if Thought, Power of Thinking, were not, at all times, 
in all places and situations of the world, precisely the thing that was 
wanted. The fatal man, is he not always the ^thinking man, the 



CARLYLE ON BURNS. 439 

man who cannot think and see ; but only grope, and hallucinate, and 
missee the nature of the thing he works with ? He missees it, mis- 
takes it, as we say, takes it for one thing, and it is another thing, — 
and leaves him standing like a Futility there ! He is the fatal man ; 
unutterably fatal, put in the high places of men. — " Why complain of 
this ? " say some : " Strength is mournfully denied its arena ; that was 
true from of old." Doubtless; and the worse for the arena, answer 1 ! 
Complaining profits little ; stating of the truth may profit. That a 
Europe, with its French Revolution just breaking out, finds no need 
of a Burns except for gauging beer, — is a thing I, for one, cannot 
rejoice at ! — 

Once more we have to say here that the chief quality of Burns is 
the sincerity of him. So in his Poetry, so in his Life. The Song he 
sings is not of fantasticalities ; it is of a thing felt, really there ; the prime 
merit of this, as of all in him, and of his Life generally, is truth. The 
Life of Burns is what we may call a great tragic sincerity. A sort of 
savage sincerity, — not cruel, far from that ; but wild, wrestling naked 
with the truth of things. In that sense, there is something of the 
savage in all great men. 

Hero-worship, — Odin, Burns ? Well; these Men of Letters too were 
not without a kind of hero-worship : but what a strange condition has 
that got into now ! The waiters and ostlers of Scotch inns, prying 
about the door, eager to catch any word that fell from Burns, were 
doing unconscious reverence to the Heroic. Johnson had his Boswell 
for worshipper. Rousseau had worshippers enough ; princes calling 
on him in his mean garret; the great, the beautiful doing reverence 
to the poor moonstruck man. For himself a most portentous con- 
tradiction ; the two ends of his life not to be brought into harmony. 
He sits at the tables of grandees ; and has to copy music for his own 
living. He cannot even get his music copied: "By dinf of din- 
ing out," says he, " I run the risk of dying by starvation at home." 
For his worshippers too, a most questionable thing ! If doing Hero- 
worship well or badly be the test of vital well-being or ill-being to a 
generation, can we say that these generations are very first-rate? — 
And yet our heroic Men of Letters do teach, govern, are kings, priests, 
or what you like to call them ; intrinsically there is no preventing it 
by any meansjwhatever. The world has to obey him who thinks and 
sees in the world. The world can alter the manner of that ; can 
either have it as blessed continuous summer sunshine, or as unblessed 
black thunder and tornado, — with unspeakable difference of profit for 
the world ! The manner of it is very alterable ; the matter and fact 



440 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

of it is not alterable by any. power under the sky. Light ; or, failing 
that, lightning : the world can take its choice. Not whether we call 
an Odin god, prophet, priest, or what we call him ; but whether we 
believe the word he tells us : there it all lies. If it be a true word, 
we shall have to believe it ; believing it, we shall have to do it. What 
name or welcome we give him or it, is a point that concerns ourselves 
mainly. //, the new Truth, new deeper revealing of the Secret of 
this Universe, is verily of the nature of a message from on high ; and 
must and will have itself obeyed. — 

My last remark is on that notablest phasis of Burns's history, — his 
visit to Edinburgh. Often it seems to me as if his demeanour there 
were the highest proof he gave of what a fund of worth and genuine 
manhood was in him. If we think of it, few heavier burdens could 
be laid on the strength of a man. So sudden ; all common Lionism, 
which ruins innumerable men, was as nothing to this. It is as if 
Napoleon had been made a King of, not gradually, but at once from 
the Artillery Lieutenancy in the Regiment la Fere. Burns, still only in 
his twenty-seventh year, is no longer even a ploughman ; he is flying to 
the West Indies to escape disgrace and a jail. This month he is a 
ruined peasant, his wages seven pounds a year, and these gone from 
him : next month he is in the blaze of rank and beauty, handing down 
jewelled duchesses to dinner ; the cynosure of all eyes ! 

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man ; but for one man who 
can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity. I 
admire much the way in which Burns met all this. Perhaps no man 
one could point out, was ever so sorely tried, and so little forgot him- 
self. Tranquil, unastonished ; not abashed, not inflated, neither 
awkwardness nor affectation : he feels that he there is the man Robert 
Burns ; that the " rank is but the guinea's stamp " ; that the celebrity 
is but the candle-light, which will show what man, not in the least 
make him a better or other man ! Alas, it may readily, unless he 
look to it, make him a worse man ; a wretched, inflated wind-bag, — 
inflated till he burst and become a dead lion ; for whom, as someone 
has said, " there is no resurrection of the body " ; worse than a living 
dog! — Burns is admirable here. 

And yet, alas, as I have observed elsewhere, these Lion-hunters 
were the ruin and death of Burns. It was they that rendered it im- 
possible for him to live ! They gathered round him in his Farm ; 
hindered his industry ; no place was remote enough for them. He 
could not get his Lionism forgotten, honestly as he was disposed to 
do so. He falls into discontents, into miseries, faults ; the world get- 




MACAU LAY ON JOHNSON. 441 

ting ever more desolate for him ; health, character, peace of mind, all 
gone ; — solitary enough now. It is tragical to think of ! These men 
came but to see him ; it was out of no sympathy with him, nor no 
hatred to him. They came to get a little amusement : they got their 
amusement ; — and the Hero's life went for it ! 

Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of "Light- 
chafers," large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and illuminate 
the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a 
pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour to the Fire- 
flies ! But—! 



SELECTION FROM MACAULAY. 

SAMUEL JOHNSON.* 

Samuel Johnson, one of the most eminent English writers of the 
eighteenth century, was the son of Michael Johnson, who was, at the 
beginning of that century, a magistrate of Lichfield, and a bookseller 
of great note in the midland counties. Michael's abilities and attain- 
ments seem to have been considerable. He was so well acquainted 
with the contents of the volumes which he exposed to sale, that the 
country rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought him an 
oracle on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, indeed, 
there was a strong religious and political sympathy. He was a zeal- 
ous Churchman, and, though he qualified himself for municipal office 
by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last a 
Jacobite in heart. At his house — a house which is still pointed out to 
every traveler who visits Lichfield — Samuel was born on the 18th of 
September, 1709. In the child the physical, intellectual, and moral 
peculiarities which afterwards distinguished the man were plainly dis- 
cernible ; great muscular strength, accompanied by much awkward- 
ness and many infirmities ; great quickness of parts, with a morbid 
propensity to sloth and procrastination ; a kind and generous heart, 
with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his 
ancestors a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medi- 
cine to remove. His parents were weak enough to believe that the 
royal touch was a specific for this malady. In his third year he was 
taken up to London, inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by 

*This article was prepared for the "Ency. Brit." and is retained in the 
ninth ed. Macaulay also wrote a review of Croker's ed. of Boswell's 
" Life of Johnson," which the student would do well to consult. 



44 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

the court chaplains, and stroked and presented with a piece of gold 
by Queen Anne. One of his earliest recollections was that of a stately 
lady in a diamond stomacher and a long black hood. Her hand was 
applied in vain. The boy's features, which were originally noble and 
not irregular, were distorted by his malady. His cheeks were deeply 
scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye, and he saw but very 
imperfectly with the other. But the force of his mind overcame every 
impediment. Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge with such 
ease and rapidity that at every school to which he was sent he was 
soon the best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, 
and was left to his own devices. He learned much at this time, 
though his studies were without guidance and without plan. He ran- 
sacked his father's shelves, dipped into a multitude of books, read 
what was interesting, and passed over what was dull. An ordinary 
lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way *, 
but much that was dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel. 
He read little Greek ; for his proficiency in that language was not 
such that he could take much pleasure in the masters of Attic poetry 
and eloquence. But he had left school a good Latinist, and he soon 
acquired, in the large and miscellaneous library of which he now had 
the command, an extensive knowledge of Latin literature. That 
Augustan delicacy of taste, which is the boast of the great public 
schools of England, he never possessed. But he was early familiar 
with some classical writers who were quite unknown to the best 
scholars in the sixth form at Eton. He was peculiarly attracted by 
the works of the great restorers of learning. Once, while searching 
for some apples, he found a huge folio volume of Petrarch's works. 
The name excited his curiosity, and he eagerly devoured hundreds of 
pages. Indeed, the diction and versification of his own Latin com- 
positions show that he had paid at least as much attention to modern 
copies from the antique as to the original models. 

While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was 
sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better 
qualified to pore upon books, and to talk about them, than to trade 
in them. His business declined; his debts increased; it was with 
difficulty that the daily expenses of his household were defrayed. It 
was out of his power to support his son at either university ; but a 
wealthy neighbor offered assistance, and, in reliance on promises 
which proved to be of very little value, Samuel was entered at Pem- 
broke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself 
to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his 



MA CAUL AY ON JOHNSON. 443 

ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of exten- 
sive and curious information which he had picked up during many 
months of desultory, but not unprofitable, study. On the first day of 
his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius ; and 
one of the most learned among them declared that he had never known 
a freshman of equal attainments. 

At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three years. He was poor, 
even to raggedness ; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity which 
were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from 
the quadrangle of Christ's Church by the sneering looks which the 
members of that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. 
Some charitable person placed a new pair at his door, but he spurned 
them away in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless 
and ungovernable. No opulent gentleman commoner, panting for 
one-and-twenty, could have treated the academical authorities with 
more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen 
under the gate at Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, 
haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown 
and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascend- 
ency. In every mutiny against the discipline of the college he was 
the ringleader. Much was pardoned, however, to at youth so highly 
distinguished by abilities and acquirements. He had early made 
himself known by turning Pope's " Messiah " into Latin verse. The 
style and rhythm, indeed, were not exactly Virgilian, but the transla- 
tion found many admirers, and was read with pleasure by Pope 
himself. 

The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary course 
of things, have become a Bachelor of Arts, but he was at the end of 
his resources. Those promises of support on which he had relied had 
not been kept. His family could do nothing for him. His debts to 
Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. 
In the autumn of 173 1 he was under the necessity of quitting the 
university without a degree. In the following winter his father died. 
The old man left but a pittance, and of that pittance almost the whole 
was appropriated to the support of his widow. The property to which 
Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds. 

His life, during the thirty years which followed, was one hard 
struggle with poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no aggra- 
vation, but was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and 
an unsound mind. Before the young man left the university, his her- 
editary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had 



444 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

become an incurable hypochondriac. He said long after that he 
had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane ; and, in 
truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought 
grounds sufficient for absolving felons, and for setting aside wills. 
His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and 
sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner- 
table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's 
shoe. He would amaze a drawing room by suddenly ejaculating a 
clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible 
aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than 
see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post 
in the streets'through which he walked. If by any chance he missed 
a post, he would go back a hundred yards and repair the omission. 
Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid 
and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand 
poring on the town-clock without being able to tell the hour. At 
another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles 
off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep 
melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his 
views of human nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness 
as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown 
themselves ; but he was under no temptation to commit suicide. He 
was sick of life, but he was afraid of death ; and he shuddered at every 
sight or sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour. In religion 
he found but little comfort during his long and frequent fits of dejec- 
tion, for his religion partook of his own character. The light from 
heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a direct line, or with its own 
pure splendor. The rays had to struggle through a disturbing me- 
dium ; they reached him refracted, dulled, and discolored by the thick 
gloom which had settled on his soul ; and, though they might be suf- 
ficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to cheer him. « 

With such infirmities of body and of mind, this celebrated man was 
left, at two-and-twenty, to fight his way through the world. He re- 
mained during about five years in the Midland Counties. At Lich- 
field, his birthplace and his early home, he had inherited some friends 
and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay 
officer of noble family, who happened to be quartered there. Gilbert 
Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man 
of distinguished parts, learning, and knowledge of the world, did him- 
self honor by patronizing the young adventurer, whose repulsive per- 
son, unpolished manners, and squalid garb moved many of the petty 



MACA ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 445 

aristocracy of the neighborhood to laughter or to disgust. At Lich- 
field, however, Johnson could find noway of earning a livelihood. He 
became usher of a grammar-school in Leicestershire ; he resided as a 
humble companion in the house of a country gentleman ; but a life of 
dependence was insupportable to his haughty spirit. He repaired to 
Birmingham, and there earned a few guineas by literary drudgery. 
In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and 
long forgotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia. He then put forth 
proposals for publishing by subscription the poems of Politian, with 
notes containing a history of modern Latin verse ; but subscriptions 
did not come in, and the volume never appeared. 

While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love. 
The object of his passion was Mrs. Elizabeth Porter, a widow who 
had children as old as himself. To ordinary spectators, the lady ap- 
peared to be a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, 
dressed in gaudy colors, and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and 
graces which were not exactly those of the Oueensberrys and Lepels. 
To Johnson, however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight 
was too weak to distinguish ceruse from natural bloom, and who 
had seldom or never been in the same room with a woman of real 
fashion, his Titty, as he called her, was the most beautiful, graceful, 
and accomplished of her sex. That his admiration was unfeigned 
cannot be doubted, for she was as poor as himself. She accepted, 
with a readiness which did her little honor, the addresses of a suitor 
who might have been her son. The marriage, however, in spite of 
occasional wranglings, proved happier than might have been expected. 
The lover continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day till 
the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed 
an inscription, extolling the charms of her person and of her manners; 
and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mention her, 
he exclaimed with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, " Pretty 
creature ! " 

His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more 
strenuously than he had hitherto done. He took a house in the neigh- 
borhood of his native town, and advertised for pupils. But eighteen 
months passed away, and only three pupils came to his academy. 
Incked, his "appearance was so strange, and his temper so violent, 
that his school-room must have resembled an ogre's den. Nor was 
the tawdry painted grandmother whom he called his Titty well quali- 
fied to make provision "for the comfort of young gentlemen. David 
Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw 



446 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

the best company of London into convulsions of laughter by mimick- 
ing the endearments of this extraordinary pair. 

At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, determined 
to seek his fortune in the capital as a literary adventurer. He set 
out with a few guineas, three acts of the tragedy of " Irene " in 
manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend 
Walmesley. 

Never since literature became a calling in England had it been a 
less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his resi- 
dence in London. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent 
merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the government. The 
least that he could expect was a pension or a sinecure place ; and, if 
he showed any aptitude for politics, he might hope to be a member 
of parliament, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of 
state. It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers 
of the nineteenth century of whom the least successful has received 
forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered 
on his vocation in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which 
separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish 
under the patronage of the great, and had not begun to flourish 
under the patronage of the public. One man of letters, indeed, Pope, 
had acquired by his pen what was then considered as a handsome 
fortune, and lived .on a footing of equality with nobles and ministers 
of state. But this was a solitary exception. Even an author whose 
reputation was established, and whose works were popular— such an 
author as Thomson, whose " Seasons " were in every library ; such an 
author as Fielding, whose " Pasquin " had had a greater run than 
any drama since " The Beggar's Opera " — was sometimes glad to 
obtain, by pawning his best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a 
cook-shop underground, where he could wipe his hands, after his 
greasy meal, on the back of a Newfoundland dog. It is easy, there- 
fore, to imagine what humiliations and privations must have awaited 
the novice who had still to earn a name. One of the publishers to 
whom Johnson applied for employment measured with a scornful eye 
that athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, " You had better 
get a porter's knot, and carry trunks." ■ Nor was the advice bad, for 
a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed and as comfortably lodged 
as a poet. 

Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form 
any literary connection from which he could expect more than bread 
for the day which was passing over him. He never forgot the gener- 



MACAU LAY ON JOHNSON. 447 

osity with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved 
his wants during this time of trial. " Harry Hervey," said the old 
philosopher many years later, " was a vicious man ; but he was very 
kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him." At Hervey 's 
table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made more 
agreeable by contrast. But in general he dined, and thought that he 
dined well, on sixpennyworth of meat and a pennyworth of bread at 
an alehouse near Drury Lane. 

The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at this 
time was discernible to the last in his temper and his deportment. 
His manners had never been courtly; they now became almost savage. 
Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and 
dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry 
when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with 
ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the 
tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild 
beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subter- 
ranean ordinaries and alamode beef-shops, was far from delicate. 
Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had 
been kept too long, or a meat-pie made with rancid butter, he gorged 
himself with such violence that his veins swelled, and the moisture 
broke out on his forehead. The affronts which his poverty em- 
boldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him would have 
broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him rude even to 
ferocity. Unhappily, the insolence which, while it was defensive, was 
pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into 
societies where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He was 
repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with 
him. All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from 
talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious and 
brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had been 
knocked clown by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the 
Harleian Library. 

About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London, he was 
fortunate enough to obtain regular employment from Cave, an enter- 
prising and intelligent bookseller, who was proprietor and editor of 
The Gentleman s Magazine. That journal, just entering on the 
ninth year of its long existence, was the only periodical work in the 
kingdom which then had what would now be called a large circula- 
tion. It was, indeed, the chief source of parliamentary intelligence. 
It was not then safe, even during a recess, to publish an account of the 



44 8 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

proceedings of either House .without some disguise. Cave, however, 
ventured to entertain his readers with what he called " Reports of the 
Debates of the Senate of Lilliput." France was Blefuscu ; London 
was Mildendo ; pounds were sprugs ; the Duke of Newcastle was the 
Nardac Secretary of State ; Lord Hardwicke was the Hurgo Hickrad ; 
and William Pulteney was Wingul Pulnub. To write the speeches 
was, during several years, the business of Johnson. He was generally 
furnished with notes, meagre indeed, and inaccurate, of what had 
been said ; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence 
both for the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a Tory, 
not from rational conviction — for his serious opinion was that one form 
of government was just as good or as bad as another — but from mere 
passion, such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues, or the 
Blues of the Roman circus against the Greens. In his infancy he had 
heard so much talk about the villainies of the Whigs, and the dangers 
of the Church, that he had become a furious partisan when he could 
scarcely speak. Before he was three, he had insisted on being taken 
to hear Sacheverel preach at Lichfield cathedral, and had listened to 
the sermon with as much respect, and probably with as much intelli- 
gence, as any Staffordshire squire in the congregation. The work 
which had been begun in the nursery had been completed by the uni- 
versity. Oxford, when Johnson resided there, was the most Jacobit- 
ical place in England, and Pembroke was one of the most Jacobitical 
colleges in Oxford. The prejudices which he brought up to London 
were scarcely less absurd than those of his own Tom Tempest. 
Charles the Second and James the Second were two of the best kings 
that ever reigned. Laud — a poor creature who never did, said, or 
wrote anything indicating more than the ordinary capacity of an old 
woman — was a prodigy of parts and learning, over whose tomb Art and 
Genius still continued to weep. Hampden deserved no more honor- 
able name than that of " the zealot of rebellion." Even the ship 
money, condemned not less decidedly by Falkland and Clarendon 
than by the bitterest Roundheads, Johnson would not pronounce to 
have been an unconstitutional impost. Under a government the 
mildest that had ever been known in the world — under a government 
which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech and 
action — he fancied that he was a slave ; he assailed the ministry with 
obloquy which refuted itself, and regretted the lost freedom and 
happiness of those golden days in which a writer who had taken but 
one-tenth part of the license allowed to him would have been pilloried, 
mangled with the shears, whipped at the cart's-tail, and flung into a 



MACAULAY OX JOHNSON. 449 

noisome dungeon to die. He hated dissenters and stockjobbers, the 
excise and the army, septennial parliaments and continental connec- 
tions. He long had an aversion to the Scotch — an aversion of which 
he could not remember the commencement, but which, he owned, 
had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation 
during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner 
debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man 
whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show of 
fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the magazine ; but 
Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appear- 
ances, he had taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best 
of it ; and, in fact, every passage which has lived — every passage 
which bears the marks' of his higher faculties — is put into the mouth 
of some member of the opposition. 

A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labors, 
he published a work which at once placed him high among the 
writers of his age. It is probable that what he had suffered during 
his first year in London had often reminded him of some parts of 
that noble poem in which Juvenal had described the misery and 
degradation of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' 
nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets of Rome. 
Pope's admirable imitations of Horace's satires and epistles had re- 
cently appeared, were in every hand, and were by many readers 
thought superior to the originals. What Pope had done for Horace, 
Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. The enterprise was bold, 
and yet judicious. For between Johnson and Juvenal there was 
much in common— much more, certainly, than between Pope and 
Horace. 

Johnson's " London" appeared, without his name, in May, 1738. He 
received only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem ; but the 
sale was rapid and the success complete. A second edition was 
required within a week. Those small critics who are always desirous 
to lower established reputations ran about proclaiming that the 
anonymous satirist was superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar 
department of literature. It ought to be remembered, to the 
honor of Pope, that he joined heartily in the applause with 
which the appearance of a rival genius was welcomed. He made 
inquiries about the author of " London." Such a man, he said, 
could not long be concealed. The name was soon discovered ; and 
Pope, with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical 
degree and the mastership of a grammar school for the poor young 



Ai° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

poet. The attempt failed, and Johnson remained a bookseller's 
hack. 

It does not appear that these two men— the most eminent writer of 
the generation which was going out, and the most eminent writer of 
the generation which was coming in — ever saw each other. They 
lived in very different circles — one surrounded by dukes and earls, 
the other by starving pamphleteers and index-makers. Among 
Johnson's associates at this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, 
when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed 
with his arms through two holes in his blanket, who composed very 
respectable sacred poetry when he was sober, and who was at last run 
over by a hackney-coach when he was drunk ; Hoole, surnamed the 
metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending to his measures, used to 
trace geometrical diagrams on the board where he sat cross-legged ; 
and the penitent impostor, George Psalmanazar, who, after poring all 
day, in a humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and Christian 
fathers, indulged himself at night with literary and theological con- 
versation at an ale-house in the city. But the most remarkable of the 
persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted was Richard 
Savage, an earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice, and had seen life in 
all its forms — who had feasted among blue ribbons in St. James's 
Square, and had lain with fifty pounds' weight of irons on his legs in 
the condemned ward of Newgate. This man had, after many vicissi- 
tudes of fortune.' sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty. His 
pen had failed him. His patrons had been taken away by death, or 
estranged by the riotous profusion with which he squandered their 
bounty, and the ungrateful insolence with which he rejected their 
advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison and 
champagne whenever he had been so fortunate as to borrow a 
guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage 
of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and lay down to rest 
under the piazza of Covent Garden in warm weather, and, in cold 
weather, as near as he could get to the furnace of a glass-house. Yet, 
in his misery, he was still an agreeable companion. He had an 
inexhaustible store of anecdotes about that gay and brilliant world 
from which he was now an outcast. He had observed the great men 
of both parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders of 
opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard the Prime 
Minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over-decent. During 
some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson ; 
and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained in 



M AC AULA Y ON JOHNSON. 45 J 

London to drudge for Cave ; Savage went to the West of England, 
lived there as he had lived everywhere, and, in 1743, died, penniless 
and heartbroken, in Bristol jail. 

Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was strongly excited 
about his extraordinary character and his not less extraordinary 
adventures, a life of him appeared widely different from the catchpenny 
lives of eminent men which were then a staple article of manufacture 
in Grub Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety ; 
and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin element of our 
language. But the little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. 
No finer specimen of literary biography existed in any language, 
living or dead ; and a discerning critic might have confidently pre- 
dicted that the author was destined to be the founder of a new school 
of English eloquence. 

The " Life of Savage " was anonymous ; but it was well known in 
literary circles that Johnson was the writer. During the three years 
which followed, he produced no important work ; but he was not, and 
indeed could not be, idle. The fame of his abilities and learning con- 
tinued to grow. Warburton pronounced him a man of parts and 
genius ; and the praise of Warburton was then no light thing. Such 
was Johnson's reputation that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers 
combined to employ him in the arduous work of preparing a " Dic- 
tionary of the English Language," in two folio volumes. The sum 
which they agreed to pay him was only fifteen hundred guineas ; and 
out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of letters who assisted 
him in the humbler parts of his task. 

The prospectus of the " Dictionary " he addressed to the Earl of 
Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness 
of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. 
He was acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the Housa-of Lords. 
He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with 
eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity, and he had since become 
Secretary of State. He received Johnson's homage with the most 
winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed 
doubtless in a very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to 
see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and 
wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the 
waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who 
gave strange starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a 
scarecrow and ate like a cormorant. During some time Johnson con- 
tinued to call on his patron, but, after being repeatedly told by the 



45 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to 
present himself at the. inhospitable door. 

Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed his 
"Dictionary "by the end of 1750, but it was not till 1755 that he at length 
gave his huge volumes to the world. During the seven years which 
he passed in the drudgery of penning definitions and marking quota- 
tions for transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labor of a 
more agreeable kind. In 1749 he published the "Vanity of Human 
Wishes," an excellent imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal. It is, 
in truth, not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the ancient or 
to the modern poet. The couplets in which the fall of Wolsey is de- 
scribed, though lofty and sonorous, are feeble when compared with 
the wonderful lines which bring before us all Rome in a tumult on the 
day of the fall of Sejanus — the laurels on the doorposts, the white bull 
stalking towards the Capitol, the statues rolling down from their pedes- 
tals, the flatterers of the disgraced minister running to see him dragged 
with a hook through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcass be- 
fore it is hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned, too, that in the 
concluding passage the Christian moralist has not made the most of 
his advantages, and has fallen decidedly short of the sublimity of his 
Pagan model. On the other hand, Juvenal's Hannibal must yield lo 
Johnson's Charles ; and Johnson's vigorous and pathetic enumeration 
of the miseries of a literary life must be allowed to be superior to 
Juvenal's lamentation over the fate of Demosthenes and Cicero. 

For the copyright of the " Vanity of Human Wishes " Johnson 
received only fifteen guineas. 

A few days after the publication of this poem, his tragedy, begun 
many years before, was brought on the stage. His pupil, David Gar- 
rick, had, in 1741, made his appearance on a humble stage in Good- 
man's Fields, had at once risen to the first place among actors, and 
was now, after several years of almost uninterrupted success, manager 
of Drury Lane Theatre. The relation between him and his old pre- 
ceptor was of a very singular kind. They repelled each other strongly, 
and yet attracted each other strongly. Nature had made them of very 
different clay, and circumstances had fully brought out the natural 
peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick's head. 
Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with 
more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, 
the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with 
grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written ; and the 
exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, 






MAC A ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 453 

while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain 
from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, 
scarcely any compliment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two 
Lichfield men had so many early recollections in common, and 
sympathized with each other on so many points on which they sympa- 
thized with nobody else in the vast population of the capital, that, 
though the master was often provoked by the monkey-like imper- 
tinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the 
master, they remained friends till they were parted by death. Garrick 
now brought " Irene " out, with alterations sufficient to displease the 
author, yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience. 
The public, however, listened, with little emotion, but with much 
civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After nine repre- 
sentations, the play was withdrawn. It is, indeed, altogether un- 
suited to the stage, and, even when perused in the closet, will be 
found hardly worthy of the author. He had not the slightest notion 
of what blank verse should be. A change in the last syllable of every 
other line would make the versification of the " Vanity of Human 
Wishes " closely resemble the versification of " Irene." The poet, 
however, cleared, by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copy- 
right of his tragedy, about three hundred pounds — then a great sum 
in his estimation. 

About a year after the representation of " Irene," he began to pub- 
lish a series of short essays on morals, manners, and literature. This 
species of composition had been brought into fashion by the success 
of The Taller, and by the still more brilliant success of The Spec- 
tator. A crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival Addi- 
son. " The Lay Monastery," The Censor, The Freethinker, The 
Plain Dealer, The Champio7i, and other works of the same kind, 
had had their short day. None of them had obtained a permanent 
place in our literature ; and they are now to be found only in the 
libraries of the curious. At length Johnson undertook the adventure 
in which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixth year after 
the appea; ance of the last number of The Spectator appeared the first 
number of The Rambler. From March, 1750, to March, 1752, this 
paper continued to come out every Tuesday and Saturday. 

From the first, The Rambler was enthusiastically admired by a few 
eminent men. Richardson, when only five numbers had appeared, 
pronounced it equal, if not superior, to The Spectator. Young and 
Hartley expressed their approbation not less warmly. Bubb Doding- 
ton, among whose many faults indifference to the claims of genius 



454 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

and learning cannot be reckoned, solicited the acquaintance of the 
writer. In consequence, probably, of the good offices of Dodington, 
who was then the confidential adviser of Prince Frederic, two of his 
royal highness's gentlemen carried a gracious message to the print- 
ing-office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester House. But these 
overtures seem to have been coldly received. Johnson had had 
enough of the patronage of the great to last him all his life, and was 
not disposed to haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of 
Chesterfield. 

By the public The Rambler was at first very coldly received. 
Though the price of a number was only twopence, the sale did not 
amount to five hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But 
as soon as the flying leaves were collected and reprinted, they be- 
came popular. The author lived to see thirteen thousand copies 
spread over England alone. Separate editions were published for 
the Scotch and Irish markets. A large party pronounced the style 
perfect, so absolutely perfect that in some essays it would be im- 
possible for the writer himself to alter a single word for the better. 
Another party, not less numerous, vehemently accused him of having 
corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The best critics ad- 
mitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviously artificial, 
and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they did justice to 
the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, to the 
constant precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to the 
weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious passages, and to 
the solemn yet pleasing humor of some of the lighter papers. On 
the question of precedence between Addison and Johnson, a question 
which, seventy years ago, was much disputed, posterity has pro- 
nounced a decision from which there is no appeal. Sir Roger, his 
chaplain, and his butler, Will Wimble and Will Honeycomb, the 
" Vision of Mirza," the " Journal of the Retired Citizen," the " Ever- 
lasting Club/' the " Dunmow Flitch," the " Loves of Hilpah and 
Shalum," the " Visit to the Exchange," and the " Visit to the Abbey," 
are known to everybody. But many men and women, even of highly 
cultivated minds, are unacquainted with Squire Bluster and Mrs. 
Busy, " Quisquillius and Venustulus," the " Allegory of Wit and 
Learning,'' the " Chronicle of the Revolutions of a Garret,' and the 
sad fate of " Aningait and Ajut." 

The last Rambler was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs. 
Johnson had been given over by the physicians. Three days later she 
died. She left her husband almost brokenhearted. Many people 



MA CA ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 45 5 

had been surprised to see a man of his genius and learning stooping 
to every drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for the 
purpose of supplying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities 
which she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his affection 
had been concentrated on her. He had neither brother nor sister, 
neither son nor daughter. To him she was beautiful as the Gun- 
nings, and witty as Lady Mary. Her opinion of his writings was 
more important to him than the voice of the pit of Drury Lane Thea- 
tre, or the judgment of the The Monthly Review. The chief sup- 
port which had sustained him through the most arduous labor of his 
life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit which 
he anticipated from his " Dictionary." She was gone ; and, in that 
vast labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human 
beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself as 
he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, 
the " Dictionary " was at length complete. 

It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedi- 
cated to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the pros- 
pectus had been addressed. He well knew the value of such a 
compliment ; and therefore, when the day of publication drew near, 
he exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same 
time of delicate and judicious kindness, the pride which he had so 
cruelly wounded. Since the Ramblers had ceased to appear, the town 
had been entertained by a journal called The World, to which many 
men of high rank and fashion contributed. In two successive num- 
bers of The World, the " Dictionary" was, to use the modern phrase, 
puffed with wonderful skill. The writings of Johnson were warmly 
praised. It was proposed that he should be invested with the author- 
ity of a dictator, nay, of a pope, over our language, and that his 
decisions about the meaning and the spelling of words should be re- 
ceived as final. His two folios, it was said, would of course be bought 
by everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known 
that these papers were written by Chesterfield. But the just resent- 
ment of Johnson was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with 
singular energy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the 
tardy advances of his patron. The " Dictionary " came forth without 
a dedication. In the preface the author truly declared that he owed 
nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had 
been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and 
most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Home Tooke, never 
could read that passage without tears. 



45 6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, and some- 
thing more than justice. The best lexicographer may well be content 
if his productions are received by the world with cold esteem. But 
Johnson's " Dictionary " was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no 
similar work has ever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary 
which could be read with pleasure. The definitions show so much 
acuteness of thought and command of language, and the passages 
quoted from poets, divines and philosophers, are so skillfully selected, 
that a leisure hour may always be very agreeably spent in turning over 
the pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most 
part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He 
knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language except English 
which, indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language ; and 
thus he was absolutely at the mercy of Junius and Skinner. 

The " Dictionary," though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing 
to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the book- 
sellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced and spent before 
the last sheets issued from the press. It is painful to relate that, 
twice in the course of the year which followed the publication of this 
great work, he was arrested and carried to sponging-houses, and that 
he was twice indebted for his liberty to his excellent friend Richard- 
son. It was still necessary for the man who had been formally 
saluted by the highest authority as dictator of the English language to 
supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his " Dictionary." 
He proposed to bring out an edition of Shakespeare by subscription, 
and many subscribers sent in their names and laid down their money ; 
but he soon found the task so little to his taste that he turned to more 
attractive employments. He contributed many papers to a new 
monthly journal, which was called The Literary Magazine. Few of 
these papers have much interest ; but among them was the very best 
thing that he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of 
satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyns's " Inquiry into the Nature 
and Origin of Evil." 

In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of 
essays, entitled The Idler. During two years these essays continued 
to appear weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and, 
indeed, impudently pirated while they were still in the original form, 
and had a large sale when collected into volumes. The Idler may be 
described as a second part of The Rambler, somewhat livelier and 
somewhat weaker than the first part. 

While Johnson was busied with his Idlers, his mother, who had 



MA CA ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 45 7 

accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since 
he had seen her; but he had not failed to contribute largely out of his 
small means to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her 
funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a little 
book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press without 
reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copy- 
right ; and the purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their 
bargain^for the book was " Rasselas." 

The success of " Rasselas " was great, though such ladies as Miss 
Lydia Languish must have been grievously disappointed when they 
found that the new volume from the circulating library was little 
more than a dissertation on the author's favorite theme, the Vanity of 
Human Wishes : that the Prince of Abyssinia was without a mis- 
tress, and the Princess without a lover ; and that the story setthe hero 
and the heroine down exactly where it had taken them up. The style 
was the subject of much eager controversy. The Monthly Review 
and The Critical Review took different sides. Many readers pro- 
nounced the writer a pompous pedant, who would never use a word 
of two syllables where it was possible to use a word of six, and who 
could not make a waiting woman relate her adventures without bal- 
ancing every noun with another noun, and every epithet with another 
epithet. Another party, not less zealous, cited with delight numerous 
passages in which weighty meaning was expressed with accuracy and 
illustrated with splendc r. And both the censure and the praise we r e 
merited. 

About the plan of " Rasselas " little was said by the critics; and 
yet the faults of the plan might seem to invite severe criticism. John- 
son has frequently blamed Shakespeare for neglecting the propriety s 
of time and place, and for ascribing to one age or nation the manners 
and opinions of another. Yet Shakespeare has not sinned ii> this way 
more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and 
Pekuah, are evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the eighteenth cen- 
tury ; for the Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the 
eighteenth century ; and the inmates of the Happy Valley talk famil- 
iarly of that law of gravitation which Newton discovered, and which 
was not fully received even at Cambridge till the eighteenth century. 
What a real company of Abyssinians would have been may be learned 
from Bruce's "Travels." But Johnson, not content with turning 
filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks 
cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent and enlightened 
as himself or his friend Burke, and into ladies as highly accomplished 



45 8 THE MODERX EX GUSH PERIOD. 

as Mrs. Lennox or Mrs. Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic 
system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of polyg- 
amy, a land where women are married without ever being seen, he 
introduced the flirtations and jealousies of our ballrooms. In a land 
where there is boundless liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as 
the indissoluble compact. " A youth and maiden meeting by chance, 
or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, 
go home, and dream of each other. Such," says Rasselas, " is the 
common process of marriage." Such it may have been, and may still 
be, in London, but assuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty 
of such improprieties had little right to blame the poet who made 
Hector quote Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano as flourishing 
in the days of the oracle of Delphi. 

By such exertions as have been described, Johnson supported him- 
self till the year 1762. In that year a great change in his circum- 
stances took place. He had from a child been an enemy of the reign- 
ing dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little 
disguise both in his works and in his conversation. Even in his 
massy and elaborate " Dictionary," he had, with a strange want of 
taste and judgment, inserted bitter and contumelious reflections on 
the Whig party. The excise, which was a favorite resource of 
Whig financiers, he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed 
against the commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they 
had seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with difficulty been 
prevented from holding up the Lord Privy Seal by name as an ex- 
ample of the meaning of the word " renegade." A pension he had de- 
fined as pay given to a State hireling to betray his country ; a pensioner, 
as a slave of State hired by a stipend to obey a master. It seemed un- 
likely that the author of these definitions would himself be pensioned. 
But that was a time of wonders. George the Third had ascended the 
throne, and had, in the course of a few months, disgusted many of the 
old friends and conciliated many of the old enemies of his house. The 
City was becoming mutinous. Oxford was becoming loyal. Caven- 
dishes and Bentincks were murmuring. Somersets and Wyndhams 
were hastening to kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now 
Lord Bute, who was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson's 
Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters ; and 
Johnson was one of the most eminent and one of the most needy men 
of letters in Europe. A pension of three hundred a year was gra- 
ciously offered, and with very little hesitation accepted. 

This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way of life. For 



MAC A ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 459 

the first time since his boyhood he no longer felt the daily goad urg- 
ing him to the daily toil. He was at liberty, after thirty years of 
anxiety and drudgery, to indulge his constitutional indolence, to lie in 
bed till two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in the 
morning, without fearing either the printer's devil or the sheriff's 
officer. 

One laborious task, indeed, he had bound himself to perform. He 
had received large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakes- 
peare ; he had lived on those subscriptions during some years ; and he 
could not without disgrace omit to perform his part of the contract. 
His friends repeatedly exhorted him to make an effort, and he re- 
peatedly resolved to do so. But, notwithstanding their exhortations 
and his resolutions, month followed month, year followed year, and 
nothing was done. He prayed fervently against his idleness ; he de- 
termined,<as often as he received the sacrament, that he would no 
longer doze away and trifle away his time ; but the spell under which 
he lay resisted prayer and sacrament. His private notes at this time 
are made up of self-reproaches. " My indolence," he wrote on 
Easter eve in 1764, " has sunk into grosser sluggishness. A kind of 
strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has 
become of the last year." Easter, 1765, came, and found him still in 
the same state. " My time," he wrote, " has been unprofitably spent, 
and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind. My memory 
grows confused, and I know not how the days pass over me. " Happily 
for his honor, the charm which held him captive was at length broken 
by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough to pay 
serious attention to a story about a ghost which haunted a house in 
Cock Lane, and had actually gone himself, with some of his friends, 
at one in the morning, to St. John's Church, Clerkenwell,in the hope 
of receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. *But the 
spirit, though adjured with all»solemnity, remained obstinately silent ; 
and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing 
herself by making fools of so many philosophers. Churchill, who, 
confident in his powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with 
party spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory 
politics to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane Ghost in three cantos, 
nicknamed "Johnson Pomposo," asked where the book was which 
had been so long promised and so liberally paid for, and directly 
accused the great moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved 
effectual ; and in October, 1765, appeared, after a delay of nine years, 
the new edition of Shakespeare, 



460 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, but added 
nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The preface, 
though it contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. 
The most valuable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of 
showing how attentively he had. during many years observed human 
life and human nature. The best specimen is the note on the 
character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to be found even in 
Wilhelm Meister's admirable examination of " Hamlet." But here 
praise must end. It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a 
more worthless edition of any great classic. The reader may turn 
over play after play without finding one happy conjectural emendation, 
or one ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage which had 
baffled preceding commentators. Johnson had, in his prospectus, 
told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for the task which he had 
undertaken, because he had, as a lexicographer, been under the 
necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any of 
his predecessors. That his knowledge of our literature was extensive, 
is indisputable. But, unfortunately, he had altogether neglected that 
very part of our literature with which it is especially desirable that an 
editor of Shakespeare should be conversant. It is dangerous to 
assert a negative. Yet little will be risked by the assertion that in the 
two folio volumes of the " English Dictionary " there is not a single 
passage quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age, except 
Shakespeare and Ben. Even from Ben the quotations are few. 
Johnson might easily, in a few months, have made himself well 
acquainted with every old play that was extant. But it never seems 
to have occurred to him that this was a necessary preparation for the 
work which he had undertaken. He would doubtless have admitted 
that it would be the height of absurdity in a man who was not 
familiar with the works of /Eschylus and Euripides to publish an 
edition of Sophocles. Yet he ventured to publish an edition of 
Shakespeare without having ever in his life, as far as can be dis- 
covered, read a single scene of Massinger, Ford, Decker, Webster, 
Marlowe, Beaumont, or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and 
scurrilous. Those who most loved and honored him had little to say 
in praise of the manner in which he had discharged the duty of a 
commentator. He had, however, acquitted himself of a debt which 
had long lain heavy on his conscience, and he sunk back into the 
repose from which the sting of satire had roused him. He long con- 
tinued to live upon the fame which he had already won. He was 
honored by the University of Oxford with a doctor's degree, by the 



MA CA ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 46 1 

Royal Academy with a professorship, and by the king with an inter- 
view, in which his majesty most graciously expressed a hope that so 
excellent a writer would not cease to write. In the interval, howeve ". 
between 1765 and 1775 Johnson published only two or three political 
tracts, the longest of which he could have produced in forty-eigh 
hours, if he had worked as he worked on the " Life of Savage" and 
on " Rasselas." 

But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. The 
influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom 
he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether 
without a parallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest 
order. He had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humor, immense 
knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious 
anecdotes. As respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. 
Every sentence which dropped from his lips was as correct in struc- 
ture as the most nicely balanced period of The Rambler. But in his 
talk there were no pompous triads, and little more than a fair pro- 
portion of words in osity and ation. All was simplicity, ease, and 
vigor. He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed sentences with a 
power of voice, and a justness and energy of emphasis, of which the 
effect was rather increased than diminished by the rollings of his 
huge form, and by the asthmatic gaspings and puffings in which the 
peals of his eloquence generally ended. Nor did the laziness which 
made him unwilling to sit down to his desk prevent him from giving 
instruction or entertainment orally. To discuss questions of taste, 
of learning, of casuistry, in language so exact and so forcible that it 
might have been printed without the alteration of a word, was to him 
no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, as he said, to fold his legs 
and have his talk out. He was ready to bestow the overflowings of 
his full mind on anybody who would start a subject, on a fellow- 
passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who sat at the same table 
with him in an eating house. But his conversation was nowhere so 
brilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few friends, 
whose abilities and knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, 
to send him back every ball that he threw. Some of these, in 1764, 
formed themselves into a club, which gradually became a formidable 
power in the commonwealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced by 
this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, 
and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn 
the sheets to the service of the trunk maker and the pastry cook. 
Nor shall we think this strange when we consider what great and 



462 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD 

various talents and acquirements met in the little fraternity. Gold- 
smith was the representative of poetry and light literature, Reynolds 
of the arts, Burke of political eloquence and political philosophy. 
There, too, were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest 
linguist, of the age. Garrick brought to the meeting his inexhaustible 
pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, and his consummate knowledge 
of stage effect. Among the most constant attendants were two high- 
born and highbred gentlemen, closely bound together by friendship, 
but of widely different characters and habits — Bennet Langton., dis- 
tinguished by his skill in Greek literature, by the orthodoxy of his 
opinions, and by the sanctity of his life ; and Topham Beauclerk, 
renowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his 
fastidious taste, and his sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a 
society was not easy. Yet even over such a society Johnson pre- 
dominated. Burke might indeed have disputed the supremacy to 
which others were under the necessity of submitting. But Burke, 
though not generally a very patient listener, was content to take the 
second part when Johnson was present ; and the club itself, consisting 
of so many eminent men, is to this day popularly designated as 
Johnson's Club. 

Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it 
has owed the greater part of its celebrity, yet who was regarded with 
little respect by his brethren, and had not without difficulty obtained a 
seat among them. This was James Boswell.a young Scotch lawyer, heir 
to an honorable name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb and 
a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all 
who were acquainted with him. That he could not reason, that he 
had no wit, no humor, no eloquence, is apparent from his writings. 
And yet his writings are read beyond the Mississippi, and under the 
Southern Cross, and are likely to be read as long as English exists, 
either as a living or as a dead language. Nature had made him a 
slave and an idolater. His mind resembled those creepers which the 
botanists call parasites, and which can subsist only by clinging round 
the stems and imbibing the juices of stronger plants. He must have 
fastened himself on somebody. He might have fastened himself on 
Wilkes, and have become the fiercest patriot in the Bill of Rights 
Society. He might have fastened himself on Whitefield, and have 
become the loudest field-preacher among the Calvinistic Methodists. 
In a happy hour he fastened himself on Johnson. The pair might 
seem ill matched ; for Johnson had early been prejudiced against 
Boswell's country. To a man of Johnson's strong understanding and 



MA CA ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 4^3 

irritable temper, the silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must have 
been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. Johnson hated to be 
questioned ; and Boswell was eternally catechising him on all kinds 
of subjects, and sometimes propounded such questions as, " What 
would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a baby ? " 
Johnson was a water drinker, and Boswell was a winebibber, and 
indeed little better than an habitual sot. It was impossible that there 
should be perfect harmony between two such companions. Indeed, 
the great man was sometimes provoked into fits of passion, in which 
he said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously 
resented. Every quarrel, however, was soon made up. During 
twenty years the disciple continued to worship the master : the master 
continued to scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and to love him. The 
two friends ordinarily resided at a great distance from each other. 
Boswell practiced in the Parliament-house of Edinburgh, and could 
pay only occasional visits to London. During those visits his chief 
business was to watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson's habits, to 
turn the conversation to subjects about which Johnson was likely to 
say something remarkable, and to fill quarto notebooks with minutes 
of what Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the materials 
out of which was afterwards constructed the most interesting biograph- 
ical work in the world. 

Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connection 
less important indeed to his fame, but much more important to his 
happiness, than his connection with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of 
the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and culti- 
vated understanding, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married 
to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert, young 
women, who are perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, 
but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the 
Thrales became acquainted with Johnson, and the acquaintance 
ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and delighted by 
the brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by finding that 
a man so widely celebrated preferred their house to any other in Lon- 
don. Even the peculiarities which seemed to unfit him for civilized 
society, his gesticulations, his rollings, his puffings, his mutterings, 
the strange way in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous eager- 
ness with which he devoured his dinner, his fits of melancholy, his fits 
of anger, his frequent rudeness, his occasional ferocity, increased the 
interest which his new associates took in him. For these things were 
the cruel marks left behind by a life which had been one long conflict 



464 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

with disease and with adversity. In a vulgar hack writer, such odditie s 
would have excited only disgust. But in a man of genius, learning. 
and virtue, their effect was to add pity to admiration and esteem. 
Johnson soon had an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a 
still more pleasant apartment at the villa of his friends on Streatham 
Common. A large part of every year he passed in those abodes — 
abodes which must have seemed magnificent and luxurious indeed, 
when compared with the dens in which he had generally been lodged. 
But his chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer of his 
Abyssinian tale called " the endearing elegance of female friendship." 
Mrs. Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and, if she some- 
times provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amends by listening 
to his reproofs with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was 
diseased in body and in mind, she was the most tender of nurses. 
No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance that womanly 
ingenuity set to work by womanly compassion could devise, was want, 
ing to his sick room. He requited her kindness by an affection pure 
as the affection of a father, yet delicately tinged with a gallantry which, 
though awkward, must have been more flattering than the attentions 
of a crowd of the fools who gloried in the names, now obselete, of 
Buck and Maccaroni. It should seem that a full half of Johnson's 
life, during about sixteen years, was passed under the roof of the 
Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and some- 
times to Brighton ; once to Wales, and once to Paris. But he had 
at the same time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts 
on the north of Fleet Street. In the garrets was his library, a 
large and miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces and 
begrimed with dust. On a lower floor he sometimes, but very 
rarely, regaled a friend with a plain dinner, a veal pie, or a leg of 
lamb and spinach, and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwelling 
uninhabited during his long absences. It was the home of the 
most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought 
together. At the head of the establishment Johnson had placed an 
old lady named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her 
blindness and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and re- 
proaches, he gave an asylum to another lady who was as poor as 
herself, Mrs. Desmoulins, whose family he had known many years 
before in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daughter of Mrs. 
Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who was generally 
addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous host called 
Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, who bled and dosed coal 



MACA ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 465 

heavers and hackney coachmen, and received for fees crusts of bread, 
bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and sometimes a little copper, completed 
this strange menagerie. All these poor creatures were at constant 
war with each other, and with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Some- 
times, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servant to the 
master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, and 
railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escape to 
Streatham, or to the Mitre tavern. And yet he, who was generally the 
haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to 
resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proud 
bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from 
mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the work- 
house, insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked 
down Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year 
Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins, Polly and Levett continued to 
torment him and to live upon him. 

The course of life which has been described was interrupted in 
Johnson's sixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early read 
an account of the Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning 
that there was so near him a land peopled by a race which was still 
as rude and simple as in the Middle Ages. A wish to become inti- 
mately acquainted with a state of society so utterly unlike all that he 
had ever seen, frequently crossed his mind. But it is not probable 
that his curiosity would have overcome his habitual sluggishness, and 
his love of the smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, had not 
Boswell importuned him to attempt the adventure, and offered to be 
his squire. At length, in August, 1773, Johnson crossed the High- 
land line, and plunged courageously into what was then considered, 
by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous wilderness. After 
wandering about two months through the Celtic region, sometimes 
in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and sometimes 
on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his weight, he re- 
turned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new 
theories. During the following year he employed himself in record- 
ing his adventures. About the beginning of 1775, ms "Journey to 
the Hebrides " was published, and was, during some weeks, the chief 
subject of conversation in all circles in which any attention was paid 
to literature. The book is still read with pleasure. The narrative is 
entertaining ; the speculations, whether sound or unsound, are always 
ingenious ; and the style, though too stiff and pompous, is somewhat 
easier and more graceful than that of his early writings. His prej- 



4 66 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

udice against the Scotch had at length become little more than 
matter of jest ; and whatever remained of the old feeling had been 
effectually removed by the kind and -respectful hospitality with which 
he had been received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, 
not to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the Presby- 
terian polity and ritual, or that an eye accustomed to the hedgerows 
and parks of England should not be struck by the bareness of Ber- 
wickshire and East Lothian. But even in censure Johnson's tone is 
not unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotchmen, with Lord Mans- 
field at their head, were well pleased. But some foolish and ignorant 
Scotchmen were moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth which 
was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed him whom they chose 
to consider as the enemy of their country, with libels much more dis- 
honorable to their country than anything that he had ever said or 
written. They published paragraphs in the newspapers, articles in 
the magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling books. One scrib- 
bler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed ; another for being a pen- 
sioner ; a third informed the world that one of the doctor's uncles had 
been convicted of felony in Scotland, and had found that there was 
in that country one tree capable of supporting the weight of an Eng- 
lishman. Macpherson, whose " Fingal " had been proved in the 
" Journey "to be an impudent forgery, threatened to take venge- 
ance with a cane. The only effect of this threat was that Johnson 
reiterated the charge of forgery in the most contemptuous terms, and 
walked about, during some time, with a cudgel, which, if the impostor 
had not been too wise to encounter it, would assuredly have descended 
upon him, to borrow the sublime language of his own epic poem, 
" like a hammer on the red son of the furnace." 

Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. He had 
early resolved never to be drawn into controversy ; and he adhered 
to his resolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary 
because he was, both intellectually and morally, of the stuff of which 
controversialists are made. In conversation he was a singularly eager, 
acute, and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons, 
he had recourse to sophistry ; and when heated by altercation, he 
made unsparing use of sarcasm and invective. But when he took his 
pen in his hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hun- 
dred bad writers misrepresented him and reviled him ; but not one of 
the hundred could boast of having been thought by him worthy of a 
refutation, or even of a retort. The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNichols, 
and Hendersons did their best to annoy him, in the hope that he would 



MA CA ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 46 7 

give them importance by answering them. But the reader will in 
vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick or Campbell, to Mac- 
Nichol or Henderson. One Scotchman, bent on vindicating the fame 
of Scotch learning, defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin 
hexameter : 

" Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum." 

But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, both 
from his own observation and from literary history, in which he was 
deeply read, that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, 
not by what is written about them, but by what is written in them ; 
and that an author whose works are likely to live is very unwise if he 
stoops to wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. 
He always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock, which could be 
kept up only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and 
which would soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying 
was oftener in his mouth than that fine apothegm of Bentley, that 
no man was ever written down but by himself. 

Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the " Journey to 
the Hebrides," Johnson did what none of his envious assailants could 
have done, and, to a certain extent, succeeded in writing himself down. 
The disputes between England and her American colonies had 
reached a point at which no amicable adjustment was possible. Civil 
war was evidently impending ; and the ministers seem to have thought 
that the eloquence of Johnson might, with advantage, be employed 
to inflame the nation against the opposition here, and against the 
rebels beyond the Atlantic. He had already written two or three 
tracts in defense of the foreign and domestic policy of the govern- 
ment ; and those tracts, though hardly worthy of him, were much 
superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay on the counters of 
Almon and Stockdale. But his " Taxation No Tyranny " was a piti- 
able failure. The very title was a silly phrase, which can have been 
recommended to his choice by nothing but a jingling alliteration 
which he ought to have despised. The arguments were such as boys 
use in debating societies. The pleasantry was as awkward as the 
gambols of a hippopotamus. Even Boswell was forced to own that 
in this unfortunate piece he could detect no trace of his master's 
powers. The general opinion was that the strong faculties which 
had produced the " Dictionary " and The Rambler 'were beginning to 
feel the effect of time and of disease, and that the old man would best 
consult his credit by writing no more. 



468 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, not because his 
mind was less vigorous than when he wrote " Rasselas " in the even- 
ings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered 
others to choose for him, a subject such as he would at no time have 
been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He 
never willingly read, or thought, or talked about affairs of State. 
He loved biography, literary history, the history of manners ; but po- 
litical history was positively distasteful to him. The question at issue 
between the colonies and the mother country was a question about 
which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, as the 
greatest men must fail when they attempt to do that for which 
they are unfit ; as Burke would have failed if Burke bad tried to write 
comedies like those of Sheridan ; as Reynolds would have failed if 
Reynolds had tried to paint landscapes like those of Wilson. Hap- 
pily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most signally that 
his failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay. 

On Easter eve, 1777, some persons, deputed by a meeting which 
consisted of forty of the first booksellers in London, called upon him. 
Though he had some scruples about doing business at that season, 
he received his visitors with much civility. They came to inform him 
that a new edition of the English poets, from Cowley downward, was 
in contemplation, and to ask him to furnish short biographical pref- 
aces. He readily undertook the task, a task for which he was pre- 
eminently qualified. His knowledge of the literary history of Eng- 
land since the Restoration was unrivaled. That knowledge he had 
derived partly from books, and partly from sources which had long been 
closed ; from old Grub Street traditions ; from the talk of forgotten 
poetasters and pamphleteers who had long been lying in parish 
vaults ; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who 
had conversed with the wits of Button ; Cibber, who had mutilated 
the plays of two generations of dramatists ; Orrery, who had been 
admitted to the society of Swift ; and Savage, who had rendered serv- 
ices of no very honorable kind to Pope. The biographer, there- 
fore, sat down to his task with a mind full of matter. He had at first 
intended to give only a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or 
five pages to the greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criti- 
cism overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was origi- 
nally meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes — 
small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed. The first four ap- 
peared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781. 

The " Lives of the Poets " are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's 



MAC A ULA Y ON JOHNSON. 469 

4works. The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The re- 
marks on life and on human nature are eminently shrewd and pro- 
found. The criticisms are often excellent, and, even when grossly 
and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be studied, for, however er- 
roneous they may be, they are never silly. They are the judgments of 
a mind trammeled by prejudice and deficient in sensibility, but vigor- 
ous and acute. They therefore generally contain a portion of valuable 
truth which deserves to be separated from the alloy ; and, at the very 
worst, they mean something, a praise to which much of what is called 
criticism in our time has no pretensions. 

" Savage's Life " Johnson reprinted nearly as it had appeared in 
1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will turn to the other lives, 
will be struck by the difference of style. Since Johnson had been at 
ease in his circumstances, he had written little and had talked much. 
When, therefore, he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the 
mannerism which he had contracted while he was in the constant 
habit of elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly ; 
and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly 
wanted. The improvement may be discerned by a skillful critic in 
the " Journey to the Hebrides," and in the " Lives of the Poets " 
is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of the most careless 
reader. 

Among the " Lives " the best are perhaps those of Cowley, Dryden, 
and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt, that of Gray. 

This great work at once became popular. There was, indeed, 
much just and much unjust censure ; but even those who were 
loudest in blame were attracted by the book in spite of themselves- 
Malone computed the gains of the publishers at five or six thousand 
pounds. But the writer was very poorly remunerated. Intending at 
first to write very short prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hun- 
dred guineas. The booksellers, when they saw how far his perform- 
ance had surpassed his promise, added only another hundred. In- 
deed, Johnson, though he did not despise, or affect to despise, money, 
and though his strong sense and long experience ought to have qual- 
ified him to protect his own interests, seems to have been singularly 
unskillful and unlucky in his literary bargains. He was generally 
reputed the first English writer of his time. Yet several writers of 
his time sold their copyrights for sums such as he never ventured to 
ask. To give a single instance, Robertson received four thousand 
five hundred pounds for the " History of Charles the Fifth "; and it is 
no disrespect to the memory of Robertson to say that the " History of 



47° THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Charles the Fifth " is both -a less valuable and less amusing book tha$ 
the " Lives of the Poets." 

Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The infirmities of 
age were coming fast upon him. That inevitable event, of which he 
never thought without horror, was brought near to him, and his 
whole life was darkened by the shadow of death. He had often to 
pay the cruel price of longevity. Every year he lost what could never 
be replaced. The strange dependents to whom he had given shelter, 
and to whom, in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by 
habit, dropped off one by one ; and, in the silence of his home, he 
regretted even the noise of their scolding-matches. The kind and 
generous Thrale was no more ; and it would have been well if his 
wife had been laid beside him. But she survived to be the laughing- 
stock of those who had envied her, and to draw from the eyes of the 
old man who had loved her beyond anything in the world, tears far 
more bitter than he would have shed over her grave. With some 
estimable and many agreeable qualities, she was not made :o be in- 
dependent. The control of a mind more steadfast than her own was 
necessary to her respectability. While she was restrained by her 
husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to her taste in 
trifles, but always the undisputed master of his bouse, her worst 
offenses had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pet- 
tishness endingjn sunny good-humor. But he was gone ; and she 
was left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensibility, volatile 
fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love with a music 
master from Brescia, in whom nobody but herself could discover any- 
thing to admire. Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, 
struggled hard against this degrading passion. But the struggle irri- 
tated her nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her 
health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnson could not 
approve, she became desirous to escape from his inspection. Her 
manner towards him changed. She was sometimes cold and some- 
times petulant. She did not conceal her joy when he left Streatham : 
she never pressed him to return : and if he came unbidden, she re- 
ceived him in a manner which convinced him that he was no longer a 
welcome guest. He took the very intelligible hints which she gave. 
He read, for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in the 
library which had been formed by himself. In a solemn and tender 
prayer he commended the house and its inmates to the Divine pro- 
tection, and. with emotions which choked his voice and convulsed his 
powerful frame, left forever that beloved home for the gloomy and 



MA CAUL AY ON JOHNSON. 471 

desolate house behind Fleet Street, where the few and evil days which 
still remained to him were to run out. Here, in June, 1783, he had a 
paralytic stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and which does 
not appear to have at all impaired his intellectual faculties. But other 
maladies came thick upon him. His asthma tormented him day and 
night. Dropsical symptoms made their appearance. While sinking 
under a complication of diseases, he heard that the woman whose 
friendship had been the chief happiness of sixteen years of his life, 
had married an Italian fiddler ; that all London was crying shame 
upon her; and that the newspapers and magazines were filled with 
allusions to the Ephesian matron and the two pictures in " Hamlet." 
He vehemently said that he would try to forget her existence. He never 
uttered her name. Every memorial of her which met his eye he flung 
into the fire. She, meanwhile, fled from the laughter and hisses of her 
countrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hast- 
ened across Mont Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry Christmas 
of concerts and lemonade parties at Milan, that the great man with 
whose name hers is inseparably associated had ceased to exist. 

He had, in spite of much mental and much bodily affliction, clung 
vehemently to life. The feeling described in that fine but gloomy 
paper which closes the series of his Idlers seemed to grow stronger 
in him as his last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be 
able to draw his breath more easily in a southern climate, and would 
probably have set out for Rome or Naples but for his fear of the 
expense of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of 
defraying ; for he had laid up about two thousand pounds, the fruit 
of labors which had made the fortune of several publishers. But he 
was unwilling to break in upon this hoard, and he seems to have 
wished even to keep its existence a secret. Some of his friends 
hoped that the government might be induced to increase his pension 
to six hundred pounds a year, but this hope was disappointed, and 
he resolved to stand one English winter more. This winter was his 
last. His legs grew weaker ; his breath grew shorter ; the fatal 
water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against 
pain, but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make deeper and 
deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferings 
during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, he was not 
left desolate. The ablest physicians and surgeons attended him, and 
refused to accept fees from him. Burke parted from him with deep 
emotion. Windham sat much in the sick room, arranged the pillows, 
and sent his own servant to watch at night by the bed. Frances 



47 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Burney, whom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, 
stood weeping at the door ; while Langton, whose piety eminently 
qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time, received 
the last pressure of his friend's hand within. When at length the 
moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud 
passed away from Johnson's mind. His temper became unusually 
patient and gentle ; he ceased to think with terror of death, and of 
that which lies beyond death ; and he spoke much of the mercy of 
God, and of the propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame of mind 
he died on the 13th of December, 1784. He was laid, a week later, 
in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had 
been the historian — Cowley and Dunham, Dryden and Congreve, 
Gay, Prior, and Addison. 

Since his death, the popularity of his works — the " Lives of the 
Poets," and, perhaps, the " Vanity of Human Wishes," excepted — has 
greatly diminished. His " Dictionary " has been altered by editors till 
it can scarcely be called his. An allusion to his Rambler or his Idler 
is not readily apprehended in literary circles. The fame even of 
" Rasselas " has grown somewhat dim. But though the celebrity of the 
writings may have declined, the celebrity of the writer, strange to 
say, is as great as ever. Boswell's book has done for him more than 
the best of his own books could do. The memory of other authors is 
kept alive by their works. But the memory of Johnson keeps many 
of his works alive. The old philosopher is still among us in the 
brown coat with the metal buttons and the shirt which ought to be 
at wash, blinking, puffing, rolling his head, drumming with his 
fingers, tearing his meat like a tiger and swallowing his tea in oceans. 
No human being who has been more than seventy years in the grave 
is so well known to us. And it is but just to say that our intimate 
acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuos- 
ities of his intellect and of his temper, serves only to strengthen our 
conviction that he was both a great and a good man. 

SELECTIONS FROM BROWNING. 

EVELYN HOPE. 
I. 

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead ! 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her bookshelf, this her bed ; 

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, 



SELECTIONS FROM BROWNING. 473 

Beginning to die too, in the glass. 

Little has yet been changed, I think — 
The shutters are shut, no light may pass 

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. 

II. 

Sixteen years old when she died ! 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name — 
It was not her time to love : beside, 

Her life had many a hope and aim, 
Duties enough and little cares, 

And now was quiet, now astir — 
Till God's hand beckoned unawares, 

And the sweet white brow is all of her. 

ill. 

Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope? 

What, your soul was pure and true, 
The good stars met in your horoscope 

Made you of spirit, fire, and dew — 
And just because I was thrice as old, 

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, 
Each was nought to each, must I be told ? 

We were fellow-mortals, nought beside? 

IV. 

No, indeed ! for God above 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, 
And creates the love to reward the love, — *■ 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake ! 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few — 
Much is to learn and much to forget 

Ere the time be come for taking you. 

v. 

But the time will come, — at last it will, 

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say, 

In the lower earth, in the years long still, 
That body and soul so pure and gay? 



474 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, 

And your mouth of your own geranium's red — 

And what you would do with me, in fine, 

In the new life to come in the old one's stead. 

VI. 

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then, 

Given up myself so many times, 
Gained me the gains of various men, 

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; 
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 

Either I missed or itself missed me — 
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope i 

What is the issue ? let us see ! 

VII. 

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ; 

My heart seemed full as it could hold — 
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile 

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. 
So, hush ! I will give you this leaf to keep — 

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. 
There, that is our secret ! Go to sleep ; 

You will wake, and remember, and understand. 

MULEYKEH. 

If a stranger passed the tent of Hoseyn, he cried, " A churl's ! " 
Or, haply, " God help the man who has neither salt nor bread ! " 
— " Nay," would a friend exclaim, " he needs nor pity nor scorn 
More than who spends small thought on the shore-sand, picking 

pearls, 
— Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead 
On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night makes 

morn. 

" What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinan ? 

They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels the due, 

Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old. 

' God gave them, let them go ! But never since time began, 

Muleykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of you, 

And you are my prize, my Pearl : I laugh at men's land and gold ! ' 



SELECTIONS FROM BROWNING. 475 

" So in the pride of his soul laughs Hoseyn — and right, I say. 
Do the ten steeds run a race of glory ? Outstripping all, 
Ever Muleykeh stands first steed at the victor's staff. 
Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and named, that day, 
' Silence,' or, last but one, is ' The Cuffed,' as we use to call 
Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, Hoseyn, I say, to 
laugh." 

" Boasts he Muleykeh the Pearl ? " the stranger replies : " Be sure 

On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both 

On Duhl, the son of Sheyban, who withers away in heart 

For envy of Hoseyn's luck. Such sickness admits no cure. 

A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an oath, 

' For the vulgar, flocks and herds ! The Pearl is a prize apart.' " 

Lo, Duhl the son of Sheyban comes riding to Hoseyn's tent, 

And he casts his saddle down, and enters, and " Peace " bids he. 

" You are poor, I know the cause : my plenty shall mend the wrong. 

'Tis said of your Pearl — the price of a hundred camels spent 

In her purchase were scarce ill paid : such prudence is far from me 

Who proffer a thousand. Speak ! Long parley may last too long." 

Said Hoseyn " You feed young beasts a many, of famous breed, 

Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of Muzennem : 

There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it climbs the hill. 

But I love Muleykeh's face : her forefront whitens indeed 

Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels — go gaze on them ! 

Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the richer still." 

A year goes by : lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl. ^ 

" You are open-hearted, ay — moist-handed, a very prince. 

Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare your simple gift ! 

My son is pined to death for her beauty ; my wife prompts, 'Fool, 

Beg for his sake the Pearl ! Be God the rewarder, since 

God pays debts seven for one : who squanders on Him shows thrift.' " 

Said Hoseyn, " God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives 
That lamp due measure of oil : lamp lighted — hold high, wave wide 
Its comfort for others to share ! Once quench it, what help is left ? 
The oil of your lamp is your son : I shine while Muleykeh lives. 
Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if Muleykeh died ? 
It is life against life ; what good avails to the life-bereft ? " 



47 6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Another year, and — hist ! What craft is it Duhl designs ? 
He alights not at the door of the tent, as he did last time, 
But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by the trench 
Half round till he finds the flap in the folding, for night combines 
With the robber — and such is he : Duhl, covetous up to crime, 
Must wring from Hoseyn's grasp the Pearl, by whatever the wrench. 

" He was hunger-bitten, I heard : I tempted with half my store, 
And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like Spring dew ? 
Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an one ! 
He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he rode : nay 

more — 
For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two : 
I will beg ! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my wife and son. 

" I swear by the Holy House,* my head will I never wash 

Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then guile, 

And now I resort-to force. He said we must live or die : 

Let him die, then — let me live ! Be bold — but not too rash ! 

I have found me a peeping place : breast, bury your breathing while 

I explore for myself ! Now, breathe ! He deceived me not, the spy! 



" As he said — there lies in peace Hoseyn — how happy ! Beside 
Stands tethered'the Pearl : thrice winds her headstall about his wrist : 
Tis therefore he sleeps so sound — the moon through the roof reveals. 
And loose, on his left, stands too that other, known far and wide, 
Buheyseh, her sister born : fleet is she yet ever missed 
The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the thunderous heels. 

" No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, in case some 

thief 
Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I mean to do. 
What then ? The Pearl is the Pearl : once mount her we both 

escape." 
Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl— so a serpent disturbs no leaf 
In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest ; clean through, 
He is noiselessly at his work: as he planned, he performs the rape. 

* Holy House, — in general a temple, a sanctuary ; here probably the 
Mosque at Mecca, known as "the house of Allah," which contains the 
Kaaba or sacred stone. See Koran, Sale's trans., chap, ii., p. 14 and note, 
Warne & Co., 1888. 



SELECTIONS FROM BROWNING. 477 

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has clipped 
The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound as before, 
He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert like bolt from bow. 
Up starts our plundered man : from his breast though the heart be 

ripped, 
Yet his mind has the mastery : behold, in a minute more, 
He is out and off and away on Buheyseh, whose worth we know ! 

And Hoseyn — his blood turns flame, he has learned long since to ride 
And Buheyseh does her part, they gain — they are gaining fast 
On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed Darraj to cross and quit, 
And to reach the ridge El Saban, no safety till that be spied ! 
And Buheyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse length off at last, 
For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch of the bit. 

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider strange and queer : 
Buheyseh is mad with hope — beat sister she shall and must, 
Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has to thank. 
She is near now, nose by tail — they are neck by croup — joy ! fear ! 
What folly makes Hoseyn shout, " Dog Duhl, damned son of the Dust, 
Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl's left flank ! " 

And Duhl was wise at the word, and" Muleykeh as prompt perceived 

Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to obey, 

And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished forever more. 

And Hoseyn looked one long last look as who, all bereaved, 

Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may : 

Then he turned Buheyseh 's neck slow homeward, weeping sore. 

And lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hoseyn upon the ground 

Weeping : and neighbors came, the tribesmen of Benu-Asad, 

In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him of his grief ; 

And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had wound 

His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, so bad ! 

And how Buheyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained with the thief. 

And they jeered him, one and all : " Poor Hoseyn is crazed past hope ! 
How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's spite? 
To have simply held the tongue were a task for a boy or girl, 
And here were Muleykeh again, the eyed like an antelope, 
The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by night ! "- - 
u And the beaten in speed ! " wept Hoseyn. " You never have loved 
my Pearl." 



47 8 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

MY LAST DUCHESS.* 

Ferrara. 

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 

Looking as if she were alive ; I call 

That piece a wonder, now : Fra Pandolf's hands 

Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 

Will't please you sit and look at her ? I said 

" Fra Pandolf " by design, for never read 

Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 

The depth and passion of its earnest glance, 

But to myself they turned (since none puts by 

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 

How such a glance came there ; so, not the first 

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not 

Her husband's presence only, called that spot 

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : perhaps 

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, " Her mantle laps 

Over my lady's wrist too much," or " Paint 

Must never hope to reproduce the faint 

Half flush that dies along her throat ;" such stuff 

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had 

A heart — how shall I say ? — too soon made glad, 

Too easily impressed ; she liked whate'er 

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 

Sir, 'twas all one ! My favor at her breast, 

The dropping of the daylight in the West, 

The bough of cherries some officious fool 

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 

She rode with round the terrace — all and each 

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good ; but thanked 

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 

My gift of a nine hundred years' old name 

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 

This sort of trifling ? Even had you skill 

In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will 

* For admirable analysis of this poem see Alexander's " Introduction to 
Browning," p. 10, 



SELECTIONS FROM BROWNING. 479 

Quite clear to such an one, and say "Just this 

Or that in you disgusts me ; here you miss, 

Or there exceed the mark " — and if she let 

Herself be lessened so, nor plainly set 

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 

— E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose 

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, 

Whene'er I passed her ; but who passed without 

Much the same smile? This grew ; I gave commands ; 

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 

As if alive. Will it please you rise ? We'll meet 

The company below, then. I repeat, 

The Count your Master's known munificence 

Is ample warrant that no just pretence 

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed ; 

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 

Together down, sir ! Notice Neptune, tho' 

Taming a sea horse, thought a rarity, 

Which Claus of Innspruck cast in bronze for me, 

EPILOGUE. 

From "Aso/ando." 

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you set your fancies free, 
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, imprisoned — 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, — 
Pity me ? 

Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly ? 
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel — 
Being — who ? 

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, 

Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake, 



480 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

No, at noonday in. the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
" Strive and thrive ! " cry " Speed — fight on, fare ever 
There as here ! " 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON. 

ODE 

On the Death of the Duke of Wellington. 
Published in 1752. 

I. 

Bury the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation, 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, 
Mourning when their leaders fall, 
Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 



Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? 
Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
And the feet of those he fought for, 
Echo round his bones forevermore. 

III. 

Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 

As fits an universal woe, 

Let the long, long procession go, 

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 

And let the mournful martial music blow ; 

The last great Englishman is low. 

IV. 

Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 
Remembering all his greatness in the Past. 
No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON. 4^1 

O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute : 

Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 

The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 

Whole in himself, a common good. 

Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 

Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 

Our greatest yet with least pretence, 

Great in council and great in war, 

Foremost captain of his time, 

Rich in saving common-sense, 

And, as the greatest only are, 

In his simplicity sublime. 

O good gray head which all men knew, 

O voice from which their omens all men drew, 

O iron nerve to true occasion true, 

O fall'n at length that tower of strength 

Which stood four square to all the winds that blew ! 

Such was he whom we deplore. 

The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 

The great World-victor's * victor will be seen no more. 



All is over and done : 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

England, for thy son. 

Let the bell be toll'd. 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

And render him to the mould. 

Under the cross of gold 

That shines over city and river, 

There he shall rest forever 

Among the wise and the bold. 

Let the bell be toll'd : 

And the reverent people behold 

The towering car, the sable steeds : 

Bright let it be with its blazoned deeds, 

Dark in its funeral fold. 

Let the bell be toll'd : 

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd ; 

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd 

* Who is meant by the " World-victor " ? 



482 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Thro' the dome of the golden cross ;* 

And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 

He knew their voices of old. 

For many a time in many a clime 

His captain's-ear has heard them boom 

Bellowing victory, bellowing doom : 

When he with those deep voices wrought, 

Guarding realms and kings from shame ; 

With those deep voices our dead captain taught 

The tyrant, and asserts his claim 

In that dread sound to the great name, 

Which he has worn so pure of blame, 

In praise and in dispraise the same, 

A man of well-attempered frame. 

O civic muse, to such a name, 

To such a name for ages long, 

To such a name, 

Preserve a broad approach of fame, 

And ever-echoing avenues of song. 

VI. 

Who is he that cometh, like an honour'd guest, 

With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest, 

With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ? 

Mighty Seaman.f this is he 

Was great by land as thou by sea. 

Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 

The greatest sailor since our world began. 

Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 

To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 

For this is he 

Was great by land as thou by sea ; 

His foes were thine ; he kept us free ; 

Oh give him welcome, this is he 

Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 

And worthy to be laid by thee ; 

For this is England's greatest son, 

He that gained a hundred fights, 

* Where is Wellington buried ? What is the "dome of the golden cross " ? 
f Who is the " Mighty Seaman " here referred to? 






SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON. 4 8 3 

Nor ever lost an English gun ; 
This is he that far away 
Against the myriads of Assaye 
Clashed with his fiery few and won ; 
And underneath another sun, 
Warring on a later day, 
Round affrighted Lisbon drew 
The treble works, the vast designs 
Of his labour'd rampart-lines, 
Where he greatly stood at bay, 
Whence he issued forth anew, 
And ever great and greater grew, 
Beating from the wasted vines 
Back to France her banded swarms, 
Back to France with countless blows, 
Till o'er the hills her eagles flew 
Beyond the Pyrenean pines, 
Followed up in valley and glen 
With blare of bugle, clamour of men, 
Roll of cannon and clash of arms, 
And England pouring on her foes. 
Such a war had such a close. 
Again their ravening eagle rose 
In anger, wheeled on Europe-shadowing wings, 
And barking for the thrones of kings ; 
Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 
On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler clown ; 
A day of onsets of despair ! 

Dash'd on every rocky square, ,. 

Their surging charges foamed themselves away ; 
Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; 
Thro' the long-tormented air 
Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray, 
And clown we swept and charged, and overthrew 
So great a soldier taught us there, 
What long-enduring hearts could do 
In that world-earthquake, Waterloo ! * 
Mighty Seaman, tender and true, 
And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 
O saviour of the silver-coasted isle.t 
* Look up the battles above mentioned. f What isle is here referred to ? 



484 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile,* 

If aught of things that here befall 

Touch a spirit among things divine, 

If love of country move thee there at all, 

Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine ! 

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 

In full acclaim, 

A people's voice, 

The proof and echo of all human fame, 

A people's voice, when they rejoice 

At civic revel and pomp and game, 

Attest their great commander's claim 

With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 

Eternal honour to his name. 

VII. 

A people's voice ! We are a people yet. 
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget, 
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless powers ; 
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
His Briton in blown seas and storming showers, 
We have a voice, with which to pay the debt 
Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
And kept it ours, O God, from brute control; 
O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, 
And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, 
That sober freedom out of which there springs 
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ; 
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 
Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
And drill the raw world for the march of mind, 
Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just. 
But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 
Remember him who led your hosts ; 
He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 

* What connection had the " Mighty Seaman" with the Baltic and the 
Nile? 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON. 4 8 5 

Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall ; 
His voice is silent in your council-hall 
Forever ; and whatever tempests lower 
Forever silent ; even if they broke 
In thunder, silent ; yet remember all 
He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke ; 
Who never sold the truth to serve the hour ; 
Nor paltered with Eternal God for power; 
Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow 
Thro' either babbling world of high and low ; 
Whose life was work, whose language rife 
With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
Who never spoke against a foe ; 
Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
All great self-seekers trampling on the right: 
Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named ; 
Truth-lover was our English Duke ; 
Whatever record leap to light 
He never shall be shamed.* 

VIII. 

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 

Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 

Followed by the brave of other lands," 1 

He, on whom from both her open hands 

Lavish Honour showered all her stars, 

And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 

Yea, let all good things await 

Him who cares not to be great, 

But as he saves or serves the State. * 

Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He that walks it, only thirsting 

For the right, and learns to deaden 

Love of self, before his journey closes, 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purples, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden-roses. 

Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

* Read carefully the political record of Wellington in "Ency. Brit. /'9th ed. 



486 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail'd, 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God himself is moon and sun. 

Such was he : his work is done. 

But while the races of mankind endure, 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal, seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure : 

Till in all lands and thro' all human story 

The path of duty be the way to glory : 

And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 

For many and many an age proclaim 

At civic revel and pomp and game, 

And when the long-illumined cities flame, 

Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 

With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 

Eternal honour to his name. 

IX. 

Peace, his triumph will be sung 

By some yet unmoulded tongue 

Far on in summers that we shall not see : 

Peace, it is a day of pain 

For one, about whose patriarchal knee 

Late the little children clung : 

O peace, it is a day of pain 

For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain 

Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 

Ours the pain, be his the gain ! 

More than is of man's degree 

Must be with us, watching here 

At this, our great solemnity. 

Whom we see not we revere ; 

We revere, and we refrain 

From talk of battles loud and vain, 

And brawling memories all too free 

For such a wise humility 



SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON. 4 8 7 

As befits a solemn fane : 

We revere, and while we hear 

The tides of Music's golden sea 

Setting towards eternity, 

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 

Until we doubt not that for one so true 

There must be other nobler work to do 

Than when he fought at Waterloo, 

And Victor he must ever be. 

Fortho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 

And break the shore, and evermore 

Make and break, and work their will ; 

Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 

Round us, each with different powers, 

And other forms of life than ours, 

What know we greater than the soul ? 

On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 

Hush, the Dead March w^ails in the people's ears : 

The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears : 

The black earth yawns : the mortal disappears ; 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; 

He is gone who seemed so great — 

Gone ; but nothing can bereave him 

Of the force he made his own 

Being here, and we believe him 

Something far advanced in State, 

And that he wears a truer crown 

Than any wreath that man can weave him. 

Speak no more of his renown, 

Lay your earthly fancies down, *" 

And in the vast cathedral leave him. 

God accept him, Christ receive him. 

TEARS, IDLE TEARS. 

From " The Princess." 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 



4 88 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

Dear as remembered kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more. 



SONG OF ARTHUR'S KNIGHTS. 

From "Idylls of the King " — "The Coming of Arthur' 

And Arthur's Knighthood sang before the King : 

" Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May ; 
Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll'd away! 
Blow thro' the living world — ' Let the King reign.' 

" Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm ? 
Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm, 
Fall battleaxe and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 

" Strike for the King and live ! his knights have heard 

That God hath told the King a secret word. 

Fall battleaxe and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 

" Blow trumpet ! he will lift us from the dust. 
Blow trumpet ! live the strength and die the lust ! 
Clang battleaxe and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 

" Strike for the King and die ! and if thou diest, 

The King is King, and ever wills the highest. 

Clang battleaxe and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 






SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSOtf. 4^9 

" Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May ! 
Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day ! 
Clang battleaxe and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 

" The King will follow Christ, and we the King 
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. 
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign." 



CROSSING THE BAR. 

Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me ! 
And may there be no moaning of the bar, 

When I put out to sea, 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

Too full for sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep 

Turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark ! 
And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When I embark ; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crost the bar. 



49° MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Table IX. — Modern English Period.* 



HISTORICAL EVENTS. 



William IV., 1830- 
1837. 

Lord Grey, Prime Min- 
ister, 1830. 
Opening of Liverpool 

and Manchester R. 

R., 1830. 
Reform Agitation, 1831. 
Parliamentary Reform 

Bill, 1832. 
New Poor Law, 1834. 
System of National 

Education begun, 

1834. 
Victoria, 1837. 
First electric telegraph 

patented and used, 

1837- 
Rise of Trades Unions, 

.1837. 

Rise of Chartism, 1837. 

The Queen's marriage 
to Prince Albert of 
Saxe-Coburg, 1840. 

Oxford Movement be- 
gun about 1833. 

Sir Robert Peel, Prime 
Minister, 1841. 

Chartist Riots, 1842. 

Graham's Factory Bill, 
1844. 

Repeal of the Corn 
Laws, 1846. • 

Ministry of Lord John 
Russell, 1847. 

Downfall of the Chart- 
ists, 1848. 

Free Libraries estab- 
lished, 1850. 

Death of the Duke of 
Wellington, 1852. 

Crimean War, 1854- 
1856. 

Charge of the Light 
Brigade at Balak- 
lava, 1854. 
Battle of Inkermann, 

1854. 
Siege of Sebastopol, 

1854. 
Fall of Sebastopol, 

1855- 
Peace made with 
Russia by Treaty of 
Paris, 1856. 

Indian Mutiny, 1857. 

Siege of Lucknow, 
1857. 

Massacre of Cawnpore, 
1857. 

End of East India 
Company, 1858. 

Jews admitted to Par- 
liament, 1858. 

Death of Prince Con- 
sort, 1861" 



Walter Savage Lan 

dor, 1775-1864. 
Poems, 1795. 
Thomas BabingtonV 

Macaulay, 1800-1859. 
" Lays of Ancient 

Rome," 1842. 
Thos. Hood, 1798-1845. 



T e n n y s 

(Lord), 1809-1892. 
" Timbuctoo, ' 1829. 
Poems, 1830. 
" Idylls of the King," 

1858-1886. 
"Demeter" and other 

Poems, 1889. 
Robert Browning, 



" Pauline," 1833. 
" Men and Women," 
" The Ring and 

Book," 1868. 
" Dramatic Idyls," 



*55- 
the 

879- 



" Asolando," 1889. 
Hartley Coleridge 

1796-1849. 
" Worthies of Yorkshire 

and Lancashire," 1836. 
Poems, 1851. 
Arthur Hugh Clough, 

1819-1861. 
" The Bothie of Tober- 

na-Vuolich," 1848. 
" Dipsychus," 1862. 
Matthew Arnold, 

1822-1888. 
" The Strayed Reveller," 

and other Poems, 1848. 
" Empedocles on Etna," 

1853. 

Poems, 1855. 

Wm. Morris, 1834. 

"The Defense of Guine- 
vere," and other 
Poems. 1858. 

" The Earthly Para- 
dise," 1868-1870. 

Dante Gabriel Ros- 
setti, 182S-1882. 

"The Early Italian 
Poets," 1861 ; repub- 
lished as " Dante and 
His Circle," 1873. 

Poems, 1870-1882. 



Walter Savage Landor, 
1864. 

"Imaginary Conversations," 



1824- 



from 



Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849. 

" Castle Rackrent," 1800. 

" Popular Tales," 1804. 

" Helen," 1834. 

Sydney Smith, 1771-1845. 

" Letters on the Catholics 

Peter Plymley," 1808. 
Essays, 1802-1828. 
Leigh Hunt, 1784-1859. 
" The Examiner," 1808. 
"Table Talk," 1850. 
Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881. 
Translation of " Wilhelm Meister 

1824 



" Whims and Oddities 

1826. 
" Poems of Wit and 

Humour," 1847. 
Elizabeth Barrett 
Browning, 1809-1861. 
Poems, 1826. 
" Aurora Leigh," 1856. 
John Keble, 1792-1866. 
"The Christian Year," 

1827. /"Sartor Resartus," 1833-1834. 

Alfred Tennysonf " The French Revolution," 1837. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 

1800-1859. 
Milton (Essay on), 1825. 
Essays, 1843. 
" History of%England from James 

II.," 1848-1860. 
Edward Bulwer (Lord Lytton), 

1805-1873. 
" Pelham," 1827. 
" The Last of the Barons," 1843. 
" The Parisians," 1872-1873. 
Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of 

Beaconsfield), 1804-1881. 
" Vivian Grey," 1826-1827. 
" Endymion," 1880. 
./Charles Dickens, 1812-1870 



Sketches by Boz," 1S34-1836. 

" David Copperfield," 1849-1850. 

"Bleak House," 1852-1853. 

" Our Mutual Friend," 1864-1865. 

V/illiam Makepeace Thack- 
eray, 1811-1863. 

" The Yellowplush Papers," 1837. 

" Vanity Fair," 1847-1848. 

" The Newcomes," 1854-1855. 

John Henry Newman, 1801-1890. 

" Arians of the Fourth Century," 
1838. 

" Apologia pro Vita Sua," 1864. 

Charles Darwin, 1809-1882. 

"Journal of Researches," 1839- 
1845. 

" On the Origin of Species," 1859. 

" The Descent of Man," 1871. 

John Ruskin, 1819. 

" Salsette and Elephanta," 1839. 

" Modern Painters," 1843-1860. 

" Ethics of the Dust," 1865. 

" Praeterita " (begun), 1885. 

Charles Kingsley, 1819-1875. 

"' Yillage Sermons," 1844. 

" Hypatia," 1853. 

" Here ward," 1866. 

George Grote, 1794-1871. 

"The History of Greece," 1846- 
1859- 






* The position of an author in this table is determined by the date of his 
first publication. 



TABLE OF MODERN PERIOD. 49 t 

Table IX. — Modern English Period — continued. 



HISTORICAL EVENTS. 


POETRY. 


PROSE. 


Gladstone Leader of 


Charles Algernon 


Herbert Spencer, 1820. 


House of Commons, 


Swinburne, 1837. 


" The Proper Sphere of Govern- 


1866. 


" Rosamond," 1861. 


ment," 1842. 


Parliamentary Reform 


Poems and Ballads, 1866- 


" Principles of Biology," 1864. 


Bill, 1867. 


1889. 


"Principles of Sociology" (vol. 


Disraeli, Prime Min- 


Henry Austin Dob- 


i.), 1876. 


ister, 1867. 
Mr. Foster s Education 


son, 1840. 


Charlotte Bronte, 1816-1855. 


" Vignettes in Rhyme," 


" Jane Eyre," 1847. 


Act, 1870. 


1873- 


" Villette," 1853. 


Victoria, Empress of 


" Proverbs in Porcelain," 


" The Professor." 1857. 


India, 1876. 


1877. 


Emily Bronte, 1818-1848. 


Outbreak of Zulu War, 


"At the Sign of the 


" Wuthering Heights," 1847. 


1879- 


Lyre," 1885. 


Elizabeth Gaskell, 1810-1866. 


Gladstone, Prime Min- 


Andrew Lang, 1844. 
" Ballads in Blue China," 


" Mary Barton," 1848. 


ister, i83o. 


" Wives and Daughters," 1866. 


Bill for " Representa- 


1880. 


Anthony Trollope, 1815-1882. 


tion of the People," 


" Rhymes a la Mode," 


" The Macdermotts of Ballycloran," 


1885. 


1885. 


1847- 




Sir Edwin Arnold, 


" Barchester Towers," 1857. 




1832. 


" Phineas Finn," 1869. 




" The Light of Asia," 


James A. Froude, 1818. 




1879. 


" The Nemesis of Fate," 1848. 

" History of England," 1856-1869. 

Charles Reade, 1814-1884. 

" PegWoffington," 1852. 

" The Cloister and the Hearth, "i860. 

" A Woman Hater," 1877. 

Henry T. Buckle, 1822-1862. 

" History of Civilization in Eu- 
rope," 1857-1861. 

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans 
Cross), 1820-1881. 

" Scenes of Clerical Life," 1858. 

" Romola," 1863. 

" Middlemarch," 1871-1872. 

" Daniel Deronda," 1876. 

Essays, 1883. 

Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888. 

" Essays on Criticism," 1865-1888. 

Mixed Essays, 1879. 

Irish Essays, 1882. 

Wm. Edward Lecky, 1838. 

" History of Rationalism in Eu- 
rope," 1865. _ ► 

" History of England in the Eight- 
eenth Century," 1878. 










Richard Blackmore, 1825. 






" Lorna Doone," 1869. 






Leslie Stephen, 1832. 

" The Playground of Europe," 1871. 










" Hours in a Library," 1874-1879. 






Walter Pater, 1839. 






" The Renaissance," 1873. 






" Appreciations," 1889. 






John Richard Green, 1837-1883. 






" A Short History of the English 






People," 1874. 






" The Making of England," 1882. 
William Stubbs (Bishop of Ox- 










ford), 1825. 

" Constitutional History of Eng- 
land," 1874-1878. 

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1845. 

" Virginibus Puerisque," 1881. 

" Kidnapped," 1886. 

" The Master of Ballantrae," 1889. 



49 2 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 



NOTES AND REFERENCES. 

i. History. — For general history of the time, to the accession 
of Queen Victoria, see Fyffe's " History of Modern Europe," 
3 vols. For England, Bright's History of (vol. iv. comes down 
to 1880). For Victorian Age consult also McCarthy's " History 
of Our Own Times," 2 vols., and McCarthy's " England Under 
Gladstone"; "The Reign of Queen Victoria," edited byT. H. 
Ward (London : Smith, Elder & Co.), 2 vols. For general 
historical outline, Fisher's " Outlines of Universal History," or 
Myer's " Mediaeval and Modern History," may be used. 

2. Literary history and criticism. — For the general literary 
movements of the time, Dowden's " Studies in Literature," and 
Dowden's " Transcripts and Studies," will be found especially 
helpful. Shairp's " Poetic Interpretation of Nature " includes 
careful study of the increase of feeling for nature in English 
eighteenth century poetry ; on this see also Stopford Brooke's 
"Theology in the English Poets." Stedman's "Victorian 
Poets " is an important work on this period. Mrs. Oliphant's 
" Literary History of England in the End of the Eighteenth 
and Beginning of the Nineteenth Centuries" is rather a series 
of short biographical and critical studies than a history of the 
literary period of which it treats. De Quincey has many 
essays on the great authors of his time, and Bagehot's " Liter- 
ary Studies " (Longmans), 2 vols., contains essays on Keats, 
Shelley, Scott's novels, etc. 

3. Biography and criticism of special authors. — a. Burns. — 
Carlyle's " Essay on Burns "; Shairp's " Aspects of Poetry," p. 
179 ; Shairp's "Life of Burns," English Men of Letters Series. 
Longfellow's and Whittier's poems on Burns may be read with 
class. 

b. 1 Vordsworth.— 'Knight's Life of (Macmillan), 2 vols., is 
the most complete. Myer's " Wordsworth," English Men of 
Letters Series, is extremely good ; see also Lee's " Dorothy 
Wordsworth," Johnson's " Three .Americans and Three 
Englishmen," Hutton's " Essays in Literary Criticism." Leslie 
Stephen's essay on the "Ethics of Wordsworth," in Hours in 
a Library, third series, is a masterly presentation of Words- 
worth's teaching. Matthew Arnold's introduction to his 
" Selections from Wordsworth," and J. R. Lowell's essays on 
Wordsworth in " Among My Books," " My Study Windows," 
and " Democracy and Other Addresses," are of great value. 

c. Coleridge. — Cottle's " Reminiscences of Coleridge and 
Southey" is written from the standpoint of personal intimacy. 



NOTES AND REFERENCES. 493 

Traill's " Coleridge," English Men of Letters Series, and 
Caine's " Coleridge," Great Writers Series, are good lives. 
Johnson's " Three Americans and Three Englishmen " and 
Lowell's " Democracy and Other Addresses." Brandt's 
" Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Romantic School " (Lon- 
don : Murray) may also be consulted. 

d. Scott. — Lockhart's " Life of Scott," 3 vols., and " Scott's 
Journal " are the best authorities ; the short lives of Scott 
are unsatisfactory. Carlyle's " Essay on Scott " may be read 
as much for the light it throws on Carlyle's limitations as for 
its view of Scott, which in places is open to serious criticism. 
See also Oliphant's " Literary History of England," supra, and 
Shairp's " Aspects of Poetry," pp. 133, 394. 

e. Lamb. — Talford's " Final Memorials of Charles Lamb "; 
Ainger's " Lamb," in English Men of Letters Series ; " Letters 
of Charles Lamb," edited by Ainger (Armstrong), 2 vols. 

/. Carlyle. — Bayne's "Lessons from My Masters"; A. H. 
Japp's " Three Great Teachers of Our Own Time "; Masson's 
"Carlyle, Personally and in His Writings "; Garnett's Life of, 
in Great Writers Series, and Nichol's Life, in English Men of 
Letters Series. For more extended study, the Carlyle and 
Emerson correspondence, Carlyle's " Reminiscences," and 
Froude's " Life of Carlyle," 4 vols. 

g. Macaulay. — Trevelyan's Life of, 2 vols.; Minto's " Manual 
of English Prose"; Matthew Arnold's " Mixed Essays." 

//. Byron. — Nichol's " Byron," in English Men of Letters 
Series; Moore's "Life of Byron," 2 vols. Swinburne's essay 
on Wordsworth and Byron in his " Miscellanies" is brilliant 
and interesting. See also Matthew Arnold's introduction to 
his " Selections from Byron." 

i. Shelley. — Dowden's " Life of Shelley," 2 vols., is the stand- 
ard work on the subject. Shelley's life has been'written for 
the Great Writers Series by William Sharp, and for the 
English Men of Letters Series by J. A. Symonds. " Essays 
on the ' Prometheus Unbound ' of Shelley," by Vida D. 
Scudder in Atlantic Monthly for July, August, and September, 
1892, are interesting and suggestive. 

/. Keats. — Colvin's " Keats," English Men of Letters Series; 
Rossetti's " Keats," Great Writers Series ; " Letters of John 
Keats," edited by Sidney Colvin ; Lowell's essay on Keats in 
"Among My Books." 

k. Tennyson. — No standard biography of Tennyson has yet 
appeared (1892).* Tennyson selected his son Hallam for his 

* "Alfred, Lord Tennyson. A Study of his Life and Work," by A. 
Waugh, an admirable book, has appeared since the above was written, 



494 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

biographer, so that an authoritative life is expected shortly. 
Meanwhile something can be learned on the subject from " In 
Tennyson Land," by J. dimming Walters; "Alfred Tennyson," 
by H. J. Jennings ; Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," 
vol. iii., title " Tennyson "; and Howitt's " Haunts and Homes 
of the British Poets." See also Phillip's " Manual of English 
Literature," vol. ii. 

Articles on Tennyson, reviews of his works, etc, may be 
found by consulting Poole's " Index of Magazine Literature." 
(This Index will likewise be found of great help in the study 
of the other recent writers.) Articles on Tennyson will be 
found in Dowden's " Studies in Literature," Japp's " Three 
Great Teachers," Bayne's " Lessons from My Masters." 

/. Browning. — Sharp's " Life of Browning," Great Writers 
Series, is the best that has yet appeared. Mrs. Orr's Life (2 
vols.) is longer and contains much information not to be found 
elsewhere ; it is, however, unsatisfactory in its criticism of 
Browning's work, and unreliable in its statements as to his 
religious belief. Dowden's " Studies in Literature " contains 
one of the best and most compact statements of the central 
motive of Browning's poetry. Among the many " Introduc- 
tions" to Browning, Alexander's " Introduction to the Poetry 
of Robert Browning," and Symond's " Introduction to the 
Study of Browning," may be mentioned. 

As Browning^ is a difficult author at the first approach, the 
following poems, to be read in the order here given, are sug- 
gested as one convenient mode of access : 1. Love poems : 
"Evelyn Hope"; "By the Fireside ";" One Word More"; 
"The Last Ride Together"; "Love Among the Ruins." 
2. Narrative: "Martin Relph "; "Muleykeh"; "Ivan 
Ivanovitch "; " The Flight of the Duchess "; " Clive." 3. Art 
poems: " My Last Duchess"; "Andrea del Sarta "; " Fra 
Lippo Lippi "; " Pictor Ignotus "; " A Toccata of Galluppi's "; 
"Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha"; " Abt Vogler." 4. 
Dramas: "Luria"; "The Blot in the 'Scutcheon "; "Para- 
celsus." 5. Immortality and Religion : " Rabbi ben Ezra "; 
" Epistle of Karshish "; " Cleon "; " Prospice "; " Saul "; " A 
Death in the Desert"; " Christmas Eve" and "Easter Day"; 
" Rephan." 6. Longer poems : " The Ring and the Book." 




:.F.Fisk, Engr., N.Y. 



LIST OF AUTHORS TO ACCOMPANY LITERARY 

MAP. 

The following is a list of some of the most representative men in English literature. 
By referring to the accompanying map, the student will be able to find their birthplaces as 
well as some of the localities in which they have lived. Where the names of the smaller 
places have been omitted on the map, the county in which they are situated can be found 
from the following list, and their general situation on the map approximately determined. 

Addison, Toseph, b. Millston, Wilts, 1. London. 
Alfred, King, b. Wantage, Berks, 1. Winchester, Hants. 
Arthurian Legends, chiefly located in Cornwall. 

Bacon, Francis (Lord St. Albans), b. London, 1. St. Albans, Hertford. 

Bede, or Baeda, b. Monkwearmouth, Durham, 1. Jarrow, Northumberland. 

Beaumont, Francis, b. Grace-Dieu, Leicester. 

Blake, Wm., b. and 1. London. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, b. and 1. London. 

Browning, Robert, b. and 1. London. 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, b. Durham, 1. London. 

Bunyan, John, b. Elstow, near Bedford, Bedfordshire. 

Butler, Samuel, b. Strensham, Worcester. 

Burns, Robert, b. near Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland. 

Byron, Lord George Gordon, b. London, 1. Newstead Abbey, Nottingham. 

Cadmon, b. (?), 1. Whitby, York. 

Carlyle, Thomas, b. Ecclefechan, near Annan, Scotland. 
Chatterton, Thomas, b. Bristol, Gloucester. 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, b. and 1. London. 
Clough, Arthur Hugh, b. Liverpool, Lancaster. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, b. Ottery-St.-Mary, Devon, 1. Keswick, Cumber- 
land (Lake Country). 
Collins, Wm., b. Chichester, Sussex. ^ 

Cowley, Abraham, b. and 1. London. 

Cowper, Wm., b. Great Berkhampstead, Hertford, 1. Olney, Bucks. 
Crabbe, George, b. Aldborough, Suffolk. 
Crashaw, Richard, b. and 1. London. 

Dekker, Thomas, b. and 1. London. 

De Quincey, Thomas, b. near Manchester, 1. Grasmere, Westmoreland (Lake 

Country). 
Dickens, Charles, b. Landport, Hampshire. 
Donne, John, b. and 1. London. 

Drummond, Wm., b. Hawthornden, near Edinburgh. 
Dryden, John, b. Aldwinkle, All Saints, Northampton, 1. London. 

Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans Cross), b. Coventry, Warwick. 

Fielding, Henry, b. Sharpham Park, Somerset. 
Fletcher, John, b. Northampton, 1. Ryeland, Sussex. 



49 6 THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 

Gay, John, b. Frithelstock, Devon, 1. Barnstaple, Devon. 
Gray, Thomas, b. London, 1. Stoke Pogis, Bucks. 

Habington, Wm., b. Hendlip, near Worcester, Worcestershire. 
Hall, Joseph, b. Bristow Park, Leicester. 
Herbert, George, b. near Montgomery, Shropshire, 1. Bemerton, near Salis- 
bury. 
Herrick, Robert, b. London, 1. Dean's Prior, Devon. 
Hogg, James, b. Ettrick, Selkirkshire, Scotland. 
Howard, Henry (Earl of Surrey), b. (?), 1. Surrey, Sussex. 

Johnson, Samuel, b. Lichfield, Stafford, 1. London. 
Jonson, Benjamin, b. Westminster, 1. London. 

Keats, John, b. and 1. London. 

Lamb, Charles, b. and 1. London. 

Langland, Wm., b. probably in Shropshire, 1. Malvern Hills. 

Macaulay, Thos. Babington, b. Rothley Temple, Leicester, 1. London. 
Marlowe, Christopher, b. Canterbury, Kent, 1. London. 
Marvell, Andrew, b. Winestead, near Hull, York, 1. London. 
Milton, John, b. and 1. London, and Horton, Bucks. 
More, Sir Thomas, b. and 1. London. 

Peele, George, b. (?), 1. London. 

Pope, Alexander, b. and 1. London, and Twickenham, Middlesex. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, b. Devon, 1. London. 

Ramsay, Allan, b. Lanarkshire, Scotland, 1. Edinburgh. 
Richardson, Samuel, b. probably Derbyshire, 1. London. 
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, b. and 1. London. 

Sackville, Thomas (Lord Buokhurst), b. Buckhurst, Sussex, I. London. 

Scott, Sir Walter, b. Edinburgh, 1. Abbotsford. near Melrose, Scotland. 

Shakespeare, Wm., b. Stratford-on- Avon, Warwick, 1. London. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, b. Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex. 

Southey, Robert, b. Bristol, Gloucester, 1. Keswick, Cumberland (Lake 

Country). 
Steele, Richard, b. Dublin, 1. London. 
Suckling, John, b. Twickenham, Middlesex, 1. London. 

Taylor, Jeremy, b. Cambridge. 

Tennyson, Lord Alfred, b. Somersby, Lincoln, 1. Farringford House, Isle of 

Wight, and Blackdown, near Petersfield, Hampshire. 
Thomson, James, b. and 1. Ednam, Roxburgh. 

Young, Edward, b. Upham, near Winchester, Hampshire. 

Waller, Edmund, b. Coleshill, Hertford, 1. London. 

Walton, Izaac, b. Stafford, 1. London. 

Wiclif, John, b. Hipswell (?), near Richmond, York, 1. Oxford. 

Wither, George, b. Brentnorth, Hampshire. 

Wordsworth, Wm., b. Cockermouth, 1. Grasmere and Rydal Mount (Lake 

Country). 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, b. Allington. Castle, Kent. 



GLOSSARY TO 
SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER. 



Abrayde, Abreyde, awoke suddenly. 

Again, Agayn, Ageyn, again, 
against, towards. 

Ago, Agoon, gone. 

Areste, to stop. 

Arwe, arrow. 

Attempre, adj. , temperate, moder- 
ate. 

Auctour, author. 

Availle, avail. 

Avauntour, boaster. 

Aveuture, chance, luck, misfor- 
tune. O. Fr. advenir. 

Avisioun, Avysoun, vision. 

Avoy, fie ! 

Awayt, watch. O. Fr. 

Ayein, Ayeins. Ayens, again, back, 
against, towards. 



Bile, bill (of a bird). 

Bole, bull. 

Boon, bone (pi. booties). 

Bord, table. 

Bord, joust, tournament. 

Botiler, butler. O. E. botelere, Fr. 
bouteillier. 

Botme, bottom. 

Bour, A.S. bur-bower, inner cham- 
ber. 

Brast (the pret. of bersten or bres- 
ten), burst. 

Bren, bran. 

Brenne, to burn. 

Briddes, birds. 

Brouke, to have the use of, enjoy, 
brook. 

Bulte, to bolt (corn), sift meal. 

Bywreye, make known, bewray. 



B 



Bar, bore, conducted. 

Bataylle, Batail, battle. Fr. bat- 
tre, to beat. 

Beem, Bemys (pi. beemes), beam, 
rafter. 

Beemes, trumpets, horns. 

Beest, Best, a beast. 

Ben, (1) to be; (2) are; (3) been. 

Berd, Berde, beard. 

Bere, a bear. 

Bete, (1) to beat; (2) beaten, orna- 
mented. 

Beth {third pers. sing, of ben), is; 
{imp. pi.) be. 

Biknew, acknowledged, confessed. 



Caas. case, condition, hap. * 

Can, know, knows, acknowledge. 

Casten, Caste, to plan, devise, sup- 
pose. 

Catapus, Catapuce, a species of 
spurge. 

Catel, wealth, goods, valuable 
property of any kind. O. Fr. 
cliatel, piece of movable prop- 
erty. 

Centaure, Century, the name of an 
herb. 

Cherl, churl. 

Chivachie, military service. 

Choys, choice. Fr. clwisir, to 
choose. 

497 



498 GLOSSARY TO SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER. 



Chronique, a chronicle. 

Cite, Citee, a city. Fr. cite, a city 

Cleped, Clept, i-clept, called. 

Clomben, climbed, ascended. 

Colere, choler. 

Col-fox, a crafty fox. Col, deceit 

ful, treacherous. 
Companable, companionable, so 

ciable. 
Comune, Commune, common. 
Contek, contest. O. Fr. conteneer 

to strive. 
Contre, Contrie, countiy. 
Cote, cottage. 

Courtepy, a kind of rough cloak. 
Couthe, Coude, Cowde, Cowthe, | 

could, knew. See Can. 
Crulle, curly, curled. 
Curteis, Curteys, courteous. O. 

Fr. cortois; cort, a court. 



Damoysele, damsel. O. Fr. 

Dan, Daun, Lord, was a title com- 
monly given to monks; also a 
prefix to names of persons of all 
sorts. From Lat. Dominus. 

Dar, dare (first pers. sing, present 
tense)-, Darst {second pers. sing.); 
Dorste, Durste # (pr<?Z.). 

Dawenynge, dawn, dawning. 

Debonaire, kind, gracious, 

Dede, Deed, Deede, dead. 

Deer, Deere, Dere, dear, dearly. 

Del, part, portion, whit. 

Delyverly, quickly. 

Deye, a female servant. 

Digne, worthy. 

Doke, a duck. 

Don, Doon, to do, cause, make. 

Dong, Donge, dung. 

Dorste, see Dar. 

Doughtren, daughters. 

Drecched, troubled by dreams. 

Drede, Dreden, to fear, dread, 
doubt. 

Dreynt (pp. of drenche), drowned. 

Dwelle, to tarry. 

E 

Eek, Ek, also, moreover. 

Elles, else (in A. S. composition el- 

signifies another foreigner). 
Embrowded, embroidered. 



Endite, to dictate, relate. 
Engyned, tortured, racked. 
Enspired, breathed into. 
Er, ere, before. 
Estatlicb, stately. 
Ey, an egg. 

Eyen, Eygben, Eghen, eyes. 
Eyle, to ail. 



Falle, befell. 

Eare, Faren, to go, to proceed. 

Fayn, Fayne, glad, gladly. 

Felawe, a fellow. 

Fer, far; ferreste, farthest. 

Fer, Fere, fear, terror. 

Ferthing, farthing, hence a small 
portion. 

Fithele, a fiddle. 

Flatour, a flatterer. 

Flen, to flee, flee from. 

Floughe, Fleigh. flew. 

Floytynge, playing on a flute. 

Fond, found, provided. 

Forncast, preordained. 

Fors, 'Do no fors of,' make no ac- 
count of. 

Forslouthe, to lose through sloth. 

Forwetyng, foreknowledge. 

Forwot, foreknows. 

Fume, effects of drunkenness or 
gluttony. 

Fumetere, name of a plant, fumi- 
tory. 

Fynde, to provide. 

G 

Gabbe. to lie. 

Gan (a contraction of began) is 

used as a mood auxiliary. 
Garget, the throat (Fr, gorge, a 

throat). 
Gaytres-beryis, berries of dogwood 

tree. 
Gees, geese. 
Geet, jet. Fr.jaiet. 
Goth, goes. 
Greet, "Gret (def. form ; pi. greete, 

grete), great. 
Grote, a groat. 

H 

Han = haven, to have. 
Hardily, certain ly. 



GLOSSARY TO SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER. 499 



Harrow, a cry of distress. O. Fr. 
harau, liare! 

Heere, Heer, Here, hair. 

Hegge, a hedge. 

Hele, health. 

Hem, them. 

Hente, Henten, seize, take hold of, 
get. 

Her, here. 

Herbergage, Herbergh, lodging, 
inn, port, Fr. auberge. 

Here, their, of them. 

Herknen, to hearken, listen. 

Herte, a heart. 

Hewed, colored. 

Higbt, Highte, was called, prom- 
ised. 

Hiled, hidden, kept secret. 

Hire, her. 

Holt, wood, grove. 

Hote, hot. 

Hous, Hows, house. 

Howpede = houped, whooped. Fr. 
houper, to call out. 



T 



I-ronne, run. 



Jape, a trick, jest. 
Jolyf, pleasant, joyful. Fr. joli, 
gay, fine. 

K 

Keep, Keepe, Kepe, care, attention, 

heed. 
Kind, Kynd, Kynde, nature. 
Kyn, kine, cattle. 



Lad, Ladde, led, carried. 

Lauriol, a laurel. 

Lawghe, to laugh. 

Leef, Lief, dear, beloved, pleasing. 

Leeme, gleam. 

Leere, Lere, to learn. 

Lenger, Lengere, longer. 

Lese, to lose. 

Leste, Liste, Lyste, Luste, vb. 

impers., please me list, it pleases 

me. Leste, pleasure. 
Lete, Lette, to leave. 
Lette, to hinder, delay, tarry. 



Levere, rather. 

Lite, Lyte, Litel, little. 

Lith, lies. 

Lith, a limb, any member of the 

body. 
Logge, Loge, to lodge, an inn, 

lodging. Fr. loge, a hut, small 

apartment. 
Loken, locked, enclosed, 
Lond, Londe, land. 
Lorn, lost. 
Losengour, flatterer, liar. O. Fr. 

losengier. 
Lyggen, to lie. 



M 



Maad, Mad, pp. made. 

Maist, Mayest, Maistow, mayest 
thou. 

Maner, Manere, manner, kind, 
sort. 'A maner dey' = a, sort 
of dey, farm-servant. 

Mase, a wild fancy. 

Mateere, Mater, Matere, matter. 

Maugre, Mawgre, in spite of. Fr. 
malgre, against the will of. 

Mervaille, Mervaylle, marvel. Fr. 
marveilte, wonderful. 

Mete, to dream. Used imperson- 
ally as me mette, I dreamed. 

Meyne, household, attendants, do- 
mestics. O. Fr. mesnee. 

Mo, Moo, more. 

Moche, Mochel, Mnchel, adj. much, 
great. 

Mordre, a murder. 

Moneth, a month. t 

Morwe, Morwenynge, morning, 
morrow. 

Mosten, must, 

Mot, may, must. 



N 



Narwe, narrow. 

Nas = ne + was, was not. 

Ne, adv. not. Ne . . . ne = neither 

. . . nor. 
Nedetb, must of necessity. 
Neigh, Neighe, Neih, Neyh, nigh, 

near, close by. 
Nightertale, the night-time. 
Non, Noon, none. 
Noot, not = ne 4- wot. know not. 



SOD GLOSSARY TO SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER. 



Norice, nurse. 

Notabilite, a thing worthy to be 

known. 
Nother, neither, nor. 
Nought, not. 

O 

0, one. 

On, Oo, Oon, one. 

On and Oon, one by one. 

Orlogge, a clock. 

Oughne, own. 

Outrely, utterly, wholly. 

Out-sterte, started out. 

Overeste, uppermost. 



Paramour, a lover of either sex. 

Parde, Pardee = par Dieu. 

Pees, peace. 

Pekke, Pike, to pick. 

Peyne, Peynen, to take pains. 

Pitous, piteous, compassionate. 

Plesance, Plesaunce, pleasure. 

Poynaunt, poignant, with flavor. 

Poplexie, apoplexy. 

Powpe, to make a noise with a 

horn. 
Poynt, particle, particular. 
Preve, proof, vb. to prove. 
Prow, advantage. 



Q 



Quod, quoth. 



Pad (pp. of rede, to read), read. 

Raughte (pret, of reche), reached. 

Real, Rial, Ryal, royal, kingly. 

Reccheles, reckless, careless. 

Red (imp. of rede), read. 

Rede, to advise, explain, interpret. 

Reed, counsel, adviser. 

Reed, Reede, red. 

Reme (pi. r ernes), realm. 

Renne (pret. ron; pret. pi. ronne), 

to run. 
Rethor, rhetorician. 
Reule, sb. rule, vb. to rule. 
Rewe, Rewen, to be sorry for. Me 

reweth = I am sorry for, grieved. 
Rome, to walk, roam. 
Roughte, cared for. 



Saufly, safely. 

Sawtrie, psaltery, a kind of harp. 

Say (pret. of se), saw. 

Schent (pp. of schende), hurt, de- 
stroyed. 

Scherte, shirt. 

Scholde, Schulde, sho'uld. 

Schowte, to shout. 

Schrewe, to curse, beshrew. 

Schrighte, Schrykede, shrieked. 

Schul, pi. shall. 

Schuld, Schulde, should. 

Scole, school. 

Secre, secret, Fr. secret. 

Seith, saith, says. 

Seken, to seek. 

Sely, simple, happy. 

Sen, Seen, Seene, Sene, to see. 

Sewed, followed. O. Fr. sewir. 

Seynd, singed, toasted. 

Siker, surety, certain. 

Sith, Siththen, since, afterwards. 

Slawe, slain. 

Sleighte, contrivance. 

Snowte, beak. 

Solas, Solaas, mirth, solace. 

Somdel, somewhat. 

Sond, sand. 

Sone, soon. 

Sonne, the sun. 

Soth, Sooth, Sothe, sb. truth, adj. 
true. 

Sothfastnesse, truth. 

Sownynge in, tending to. 

Speken, to speak. 

Steepe, bright. 

Steven, Stevene, (1) voice, sound; 
(2) time appointed. 

Stonde, Stonden, to stand. 
I Stoor, Store, stock (of a farm). 

Stope (pp. of steppe, to step), ad- 
vanced. 

Strecche, to stretch. 

Stynte, Stynten, to stop. 

Suffisaunce, sufficiency. Fr. suffi- 
sant, sufficient. 

Suster, a sister. 

Swerd, a sword. 

Swet, Swete, Sweete, or Swoote, 
sweet. 

Sweven, a dream. 

Swich, such. 

Swinker, a toiler. 

Syn, since. 



GLOSSARY TO SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER. 



50I 



Targe, a target or shield. Fr. 

targe. 
Techen, to teach. 
Tespye, to espy. 
Thanne, then. 
The, to thrive, prosper. 
Thei, they. * 
Ther, there, where. 
Thilke, the like, that. 
Tho, pi. the, those. ' 
Thridde, third. 
Thurgh, through. 
Ton, toes. 
Tool, weapon. 
Toon, toes. 

Torne, to turn. Fr. tourner. 
Toun, town. 
Tresoun, treason. Fr. trafiison, 

treason. 
Treccherie, treachery. Fr. tre- 

cherle, trickery. 
Tretys,longaud well-proportioned. 
Tre. tree. 
Tuo, two. 

Tweye, Twoo, two, twain. 
Tyde, time. 
Typ-toon, tiptoes. 

U 
Undern, the time of the mid-day 

rneal. 

V 
Verray, Verrey, true, very. 
Viage, voyage. 



W 



War, aware, cautious, prudent. 

Ware, to warn, to cause one to be- 
ware. 

Wayte, to be on the lookout for. 

Wende, Wenden, to go, pass away. 

Whan, Whanne, when. 

Whit, white. 

Wydwe, a widow. 

Wight, any living creature, a per- 
son. 

Wirche, to work. 

Wis, Wys, wise. 

Wise, Wyse, mode, manner. 

Wityng, knowledge. 

Wlatsome, loathsome, hateful. 

Wol, Wole, vb. will. 

Wolde, would. 

Wolne, will. 

Wone, to dwell. 

Wook, awoke. 

Wortes, herbs. 

Wyn, wine. 



Y 



Yelwe, yellow. 

Yerd, enclosure, yard. 

Yeve. Yeven, to give. 

Yit. yet. 

Ymaginacionn, imagination. Fr, 

imagination. 
Ynough, Ynowgh, enough. 
Yow, you. 



INDEX. 



Note.— When a page number is in heavy type, thus (400) it signifies the most im- 
portant reference, and generally implies the pages immediately following. 
The foot-notes are not indexed after Shakespeare. 



Abbotsford, 374 

Acting, Early, 95 

Addison, 255, 417; Addison and 
Steele, 257; Macaulay on, 260; 
on Pope, 275; The Campaign, 
258; Cato, 258; Life; 258, Ned 
Softly, 259, 260; Selections from, 
260; Sir Roger de Coverley, 259, 
263; Fine Lady's Journal, 265, 

277 
sEneid, see Virgil 
Agincourt, Battle of, 91, 95 
Albion's England, 91 
Alfred the Great, 19 
Allegory, 80 
Allen, Prof., 114 {note) 
America, Discovery of, 68 
Anacreon, 2 

Anglo-Norman literature, 35 
Anglo-Saxon, 37 
Anne, Queen, 253, 271, 275, 316; 

Ace of, 320, 323 

C - et seq. 
Arcadia, see Sidney. 
Archangel, 73 

Arden, Mary, 97; Forest of, 18, 97 
Ariel, 103 
Ariosto, 71 
Aristotle, 29, 32 



Armour, Jean, 327 

Arnold, Matthew, 66, 428 ; on 

Wordsworth, 337 
Artegal, So 
Arthur, 17, 225 
Ascham, Sr, 1S7 
Astrolabe, 32 
Augustan Age, 269 
Augustine, 19 
Austen, Miss, 420 
Authorities, 25, 60, 204, 242, 310, 

492 
Avignon, 28 
Avon, 97 
Ayrshire, 327, 328 

Bacon, 76, 187, 253; Life of, iSS; 

Essays, 190; Selection from, 191; 

Works, 189 
Baeda, see Bede 
Bailly, Harry, 38 
Balaclava, 15 

Bale's King Johan, 89 (note) 
Ball, John, 28 
Ballads, 325, 352, 372 
Bannockburn, 328 
Baron's Wars, 91 
Bassanio, 109 et seq, 
Bastile, The, 332 
Bath, 271 

503 



5°4 



IXDEX. 



Bath, Wife of, 43 

Baynes, J. S., on Shakespeare, 97 

Bear-baiting, 245 

Beattie, 322 

Beaumont and Fletcher, 209 

Becket, Thomas a, 38 

Bede's History of the English 

Church, 19 
Belinda, 276, 277, 279 
Bellario, 113 
Bible, English, 24; translated, 63, 

69; Influence of, 207 
Binfield, 270, 271 
Black death, 2S 
Blackfriars Theatre, 94, 210 
Blair's Grave, 317 
Blake, 324, 332 
Blank Verse, 70 
Blenheim, 258 

Boccaccio, 29, 106; Decamerone, 39 
Boethius, 32, 54, 55 
Boileau, 6, 270; Art of Poetry, 247, 

Le Lulrin, 276 
Bolingbroke, 272, 313, 315 
Bologna, 5, 66 

Books of Reference, see Authorities 
Border Ballad, by Scott, 385 
Border, Scottish, 373, 375 
Bossuet, 246 

Boswell's Life of Johnson, 441 {note) 
Boyer, Elizabeth, 79 
Briskett, 79 
Bristol, 315, 326 
Britons, 15, 16 
Brooke, Henry, 317 
Brooke, Stopford A. 221 
Brotherhood of man, 6, 30 
Brown, Sir Thomas, 187 
Browning, 414,429, 433; Selections 

from, 472 
Browning, Mrs., 414 
Bruce, 328 
Brutus, 103 



Buccaneers, 75 

Bull -baiting, 315 

Bunhill Fields, 222 

Bunyan, 209, 245 

Burbages, The, 100, 101 

Burger, 375 

Burke, 318 

Burleigh, Lord, 188 

Burney, Miss, 425 

Burns, 324, 326; Life of, 327; Cot- 
ter's Saturday Night, 327; Selec- 
tions from, 328; Wordsworth on 
340; Carlyle on, 435 

Butler, Bishop, his Analogy, 315 

Butler, Samuel, Hndibras, 245 

Byron, 399, 400; On Venice, 108; 
Childe Harold, 108; Selections 
from, 405 

Cabots, The, 68 

Cffidmon, 19, 435 

Calvert, Raisley, 335 

Cambridge, 23, 67, 92, 334, 345, 
423; Christ's College. 217; 
King's College, 66; Pembroke 
College, 77; Queen's College, 
66 

Canterbury Tales, Chaucer, 38 

Carew, 211, 212 

Carlyle, 333, 346, 376, 417; on 
Coleridge, 346; on Shake- 
speare, 87, 104; Selection from, 
435; French Revolution, 2, 419; 
Hero-Worship, 87, 104; Works, 
418 

Caxton, 67 

Cecil, 76 

Celt and Teuton, 18; in Shake- 
speare, 104 

Celtic, blood, Second influx of, 
21; element in English, 24; liter- 
ature, 16 

Celts, 15 



INDEX. 



5°S 



Cervantes, 81 

Chandos, Sir John, 27 

Chansons de Geste, 21 

Chapman, 71 209; Homer, Keats 
on, 413 

Charles I., 189, 206, 20S; Execu- 
tion of, 221 

Charles II., 6, 222, 245, 254. See 
Restoration. 

Charterhouse School, 255, 256, 
258, 423 

Chartists, 421 

Chatterton, 326 

Chaucer, 11, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 65, 
66, 67, S2; and Langland, 33; and 
Shakespeare, 103, 106; Life of, 30 
Society, 45 (note); Canterbury 
Tales, 38; Extracts from Pro- 
logue, 39; Century, Table III., 61; 
Character of, 33; Language and 
Versification, 36; Legend of Good 
Women, 32; love of nature, 32; 
Nonne Prestes Tale, 44; pronun- 
ciation's; Works, 34; Table of, 
36; Chauntecleer, 46; F. J. Child 
on Chaucer, 3S 

Chivalry, 21, 27, 34, 81 

Chorus, 96 

Christianity and English literature, 
iS 

Christ's Hospital, 344, 386; Lamb's 
description of, 388 

Chronicles, 90, 106 

Chrysoloras, 66 

Church, Dean, on Bacon, 189, 191 

Church, The, 28, 68; of England, 
80, 218, 249, 315 

Civil War, English, 210, 212, 221, 

253 
Classic School, 325 
Classics translated, 71 
Clough, 429 
Coffee-houses, 254 



Coleridge, 324, 325, 326, 333, 335, 
388; and Lamb, 385, 387; and 
the supernatural, 352; and 
Wordsworth, 346, 351 ; as a 
poet, 348; Liie of, 344; on 
Shakespeare, 348; Ancient Mar- 
iner, 349, 352; Biographia Lite- 
raria, 348; Christabel, 348, 349, 
35 2 » 375! Lyrical Ballads, 351; 
Work, 347 

Colet, 67, 207 

Collier, 253; Annals of the Stage, 94 

Collins, 322 

Columba, 19 

Commerce and Venice, 107-109; 
growth of, 73 

Commonwealth, 221 

Conflict of Conscience, 89 (note) 

Consolations of Pliilosophy, 32 

Constance, 33 

Constantinople, Fall of, 66 

Copernicus, 6S 

Cordelia, 90, 102 

Corneille, 6, 246 

Coryat's Crudities, 108, 124 (note), 
125 (note.) 

Court language, 24; Poet, 33 

Coverley, see Sir Roger. 

Cowper, 322; Task, 324, 332 

Crabbe, 322; Village, 323 

Craik's English Literature* 32 

Crashaw, 211 

Crecy, 28, 41 

Critical School^ 247 

Cromwell, 206, 209, 245 

Crusades, 377 

Cumberland, 16, 334, 336, 346 

Cttrtain, Theatre, 94 

Cymri, 15 

Cyril Tournettr, 209 

Daily Courant, 255 
Dalkeith, Countess of, 375 



506 



INDEX. 



Danes, iq, 20 

Daniel, Samuel, 91 

Dante, 29, 34, 71 

Darwin, Erasmus, 317 

D'Arblay, Madame, see Burney, 

Miss. 
Decamerone, see Boccacio. 
De Foe's History of the Plague, 

319; Robinson Crusoe, 31S 
Dekker, 209 
Delilah, 224 
Democracy, 28, 316, 400, 415, 421, 

428, 431 
Denmark, 12, 20 
De Quincey, 419; Essays, 2 
Devonshire, 15, 344 
Dialects, 23 
Diaz, 68 

Dickens, 414, 421 
Divine Comedy, 29 
Don Quixote, 81 
Donne, 211 
Dowden, Edward, 1 (note); on 

Love's Labour Lost, 101 
Drake, 75 
Drama before Marlowe, 92; before 

Shakespeare, 87; Decline of the, 

210 
Drayton, 75 ; Battle of Agincourt, 

91; Polyolbion, 75, 91 
Dress, 73 

Dryburg Abbey, 374 
Dryden, 247, 269, 270; as critic, 

248; Character of,- 250; Absalom 

and Achitophel, 24S; Alexander's 

Feast, 250; Art of Poetry, 24S; 

Essay on Dramatic Poetry, 24S ; 

Hind and the Panther, 249; Mac 

Flecknoe, 249, 272; Medal, 249; 

Religio Laici, 249; St. Cecelia's 

Day, 250, 251 
Du Bellay, 77 
Duessa, So 



Du Guesclin, 27 

e, final, in Chaucer, 37 

East India Co., 73 

East Midland English, 24 

Edgeworth, Miss, 420 

Edinburgh, 320, 327, 372, 373; Re- 
view, 416 

Education, Italian influence on, 66 

Edward I., Chronicle of, 91 

Edward II., 91 

Edward III., 23, 27, 30 

Edward VI., 72 

Eighteenth Century, Changes in 
the, 313; Essays, 253 

Eliot, George, 209, 376, 425 

Elizabeth, Queen, 6, 72, 74, 9S, 101, 
208, 253, 377; Character of, 77 

Elizabethan and Puritan England, 
206; Elizabethan delight in life, 
75; drama, 88, 325; England, 72; 
era, 69; literature, Later, 209; 
prose, 187; songs, 194 

Emerson on Shakespeare, 87; Re- 
presentative Men, 87 

England of Milton, 205 

English and Britons, 16 

English, character, 18; English 
dialects, 23; language, French 
element in, 24; language, mak- 
ing of the, 22, 23; literature 
Table I., 7; Table II., 25; litera- 
ture, divisions of, 4; literature, 
Modern, 6; literature, Period 
of preparation. 11; nation, Early 
character of the, 12 ct sea.; 
Race, Making of the, 12; Race, 
Mixed character of the, 15 

Epic verse, 70 

Erasmus, 67 

Essays, 253 

Eton, 66 

Evans, Miss, see Eliot, George. 



INDEX. 



5°7 



Evelyn Hope, 472 

Faerie Queene, see Spenser. 

Fairfax, 71 

Faustus, 92 

Fenelon, 246 

Fermor, Arabella, 275, 276 

Ferrex and Porrex, 70, 89 

Feudalism, Fall of, 65 

Fielding, 260 

Flanders, 73 

Flecknoe, 249 

Fletcher, see Beaumont. 

Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, 2 18 

Florence, 5, 39, 66, 67, 426 

Florio, John, 100 

Ford, 209 

Fortune, Theatre, 94, 95 

Fortunes of Man, The, 14 

Fox, 318 

France, and the Pope, 28; Great- 
ness of, 246 

Franklin, Chaucer's, 43 

Frazers Magazine, 418 

Freeman's Norman Conquest, 21 

French element in English, 5; 
French given up, 23, 24 ; influence, 
6, 245; influence, First infusion 
of, 21; Parisian, 22,41; Revolu- 
tion, 316, 332, 345, 400; Revolu- 
tion, Wordsworth in the, 334; ro- 
mances, 22; Second infusion of, 
24; Use of, by the Court, 22; 
words, 24; words in Chaucer, 37. 
See also Norman. 

Friars, 42; Friar Bacon and Friar 
Bungay, 91 

Fricker, Edith, 345; Sarah, 345 

Frisians, 12 

Frobisher, 75 

Froissart, 27 

Fuller, 187 

Furness, 106, 114 {note) 

Furnival, F. J., 105 



Gauls, 20 

Gay, 272 

Gazette, The, 257 

Gentleman s Magazine, 317 

Geology, 415 

George III., 318 

Germany, 206, 325, 415; influence 
°f> 6»375! literature of, 418; Cole- 
ridge in, 345; Wordsworth in, 336 

Gervinus on Shakespeare, 109 

Gibbon, 318, 319 

Gilbert, 75 

Gilman, 346 

Globe Theatre, 94, 95, 101 

Goadby, Edwin, 122 {note) 

Godwin, 420 

Goethe, 375, 418 

Goldsmith, 318, 322, 326 

Goldsmith's Deserted Fillage, 323 

Goneril, 90 

Gorbuduc, 70, 89 

Gower, 24 

Grasmere, 336 

Gratiano, ill 

Graze, The, 1 4 

Gray, 326 

Gray's Elegy, 322, 323 

" Great Unknown," 372 

Greek drama, 88; learning, 68, 71; 
literature, 66 

Green, J. R., on Shakespeare, 18; 
History of the English People, 30, 
41, 77, 207 

Greene, Robert, 91, 100; his depre- 
ciation of Shakespeare, 92 

Greene's Alphonsus, 94 

Gresham, 73 

Grey, Lord, 78, 80 

Griselda, 33 

Groatsworth of Wit, 92 

Grocyn, 67 

Guardian, The, 258; on the True 
Pastoral, 270 



5 o§ 



EXDEX. 



Guilds, 98 

Gulliver's Travels, 279 

Gunpowder, 27 

Haberdasher, 43 

Hair, False, 74 

Hall, Bishop, 122 (note) 

Hatton's New View of London, 254 
(note) 

Hamlet, 102, 226 

Hampden, 209 

Harrington, 71 

Harrison, 90 

Harrison's Elizabethan England, 74 

Harvey, Gabriel, 7S 

Hastings, Battle of, 22 

Hathaway, Anne, 97, 99 

Hawkins, 75 

Hawthorne, 352, 353 

Hazlitt, 388; on Coleridge, 344 

Henry III., 22 

Henry IV., 31 

Henry V. , Famous Victories of, 90 

Henry VI., 66, So. 

Henry VII., 68 

Henry VIII., 69, 89; Songs, 69 

Herbert, George, 211, 214, 215 

Herder, 325 

Heroical Epistles, 91 

Herrick, 2, 211; and Milton, 212; 
Selections from, 213; Hesperides, 
2.\1\ To Corinna, 211; To Daffo- 
dils, 213 

Heywood, John, 89 

Heywood, Thomas, Good Morrow, 

195 
Historical drama, 90 
Hollingshead, 90 
Homer, translated, 71 
Hooker, 187, 253 
Horace, 2 
Horton, 217 
Howard, Henry, 69 



Howard, John, 315 

Hugo, Victor, 325 

Humanity, New Sympathy with, 

323 
Hume, 315, 319 
Hundred Years' War, 23, 27 
Hunter, James, on Shakespeare, 112 
Hutchinson, Mary, 336 

Idler, The, 317 

// Pecorone, 107 

Inns, 93 

Interlude, 89, 93 

Ireland, 15, 78, So, 81 

Irish life, 420 

Isaac in Ivanhoe, 125 (note) 

Isabella, 225 

Italian comedy, toi ; Italian in- 
fluence, 65, 69, 70, 81, 89, 104, 
107; Decline of, 246; Period of 
influence, 5. 

Italian novels, 107; scholars, 21; 
tales, 32 

Italy, 428; and the Drama, 89 
charm of, 107; culture of, 19, 29 
Flight of Greek scholars into, 66 
Secular influence of, 205-207 
Influence of, see also Renaissance 
Milton in, 220 

James I., 6, 76, 187, 208, 218, 253 
James II., 249 
Janus, 116 
J arrow, 19 

Jerusalem Delivered, "j~ 
Jessica, 109 
Jester, 117 (note) 
Jew of Malta, 93 
Job, 113 
John, King, 22 
John of Gaunt, 31 
Johnson, Samuel, 274, 316, 317, 
318, 347; as a critic, 318; Mac- 



INDEX. 



5°9 



. aulay on, 441; perpetuates Pope, 
322; Dictionary, 318; Lives of 
the Poets, 319; London, 317, 319; 
Rasselas, 319; Trip to the Heb- 
rides, 319; Vanity of Human 
Wishes ; 317, 319 

Jonson, Ben, 80, 210, 218; on 
Shakespeare, 99, 205; Every Man 
in His Humour, 209; Noble Na- 
ture, 196 

Journalism, 255 

Jusserand, 42 {note) 

Jutes, 12 

Keats, 399, 400, 404, 427, 428; Se- 
lections from, 412 

Kenelm, 51 

Kenilworth, 74, 98 

Keswick, 346 

Kilcolman, 79, 81 

Killegrew, Anne, 250 

King John, Troublesome Raign of, 
90 

King Leir, A T ew Chronicle of, 90 

Kings English, 24 

Kingsley, 421 

Knight, Chaucer's, 40 

Kycl, 91 

Labor, Gospel of, 30 

Lake School, 324 

Lamb, 344, 386; Selection from, 

388; Tales from Shakespeare, 

388; Works, 387, 388 
Lamb, Mary, 386, 387, 388 
Lancashire, 77, 78, 334 
Landor, 419 
Lanfranc, 21 

Langland, 29; and Chaucer, 33 
Latin, 11, 21, 30; Bacon's use of, 

189; given up, 24; learning, 20; 

Norman transformation of, 20 
Laud, 208 



Law Courts, 23 

Lear, 102. See also Shakespeare 

Learning, Revival of, 65 

Lecky, 254 {notes) 

Leicester, Earl of, 78, 98 

Lewis "Monk", 352 

Liberty, Religious and political, 

208 
Lichfield, 317 
Lilly's Latin Grammar, 98 
Linacre, 67 

Lintott's Miscellany, 275 
Lionel of Clarence, 30 
Lockhart, 425; Life of Scott, 373 
Locksley Hall, 430 
London, 24, 77, 79, 80, 85, 91, 92, 

94, 99, 216, 222, 254, 255, 275, 

343-346, 386, 421, 423 
London Magazine, 388 
Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of 

Europe, 14 {note) 
Lorris, G. de, 36 
Louis XIV., 6, 246 
Lovelace, 211, 215 
Lowell on Chaucer, 3r, 35; on 

Italian influence, 70 
Lucy, Sir Thomas, 99 
Luther, 68 
Lyell, 415 
Lyly, 91, 187 
Lyrists, 210 

Mabinogion, 18 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 347, 
416; on Addison, 260; on Dr. 
Johnson, 318; selection from, 
441; essays, 2' History of Eng- 
land, 21 

Macpherson, James, 326 

Mallory, 67 

Manciple, 44 

Margaret of Anjou, 66 

Marie de France, 45 



5"> 



INDEX. 



Marlborough, Duke of, 258 

Marlowe, 70, 92; Edward II, 91; 
Passionate Shepherd, 194; Tam- 
burlaine, 93, 100; Theatre, 94; 
Works, 93 

Marshalsea Prison 421 

Marston, 209 

Mary I.', 72, 76 

Mary Queen of Scots, 72, 80 

Mask, The, 74 

Massinger, 209; Maid of Honor, 91 

Masson on Milton, 218 

Maypole, 245 

Mazarin-, 246 

Medici, Lorenzo di, 67 

Merchant Taylors' School, 77 

Metamorphoses, Ovid, 71 

Methodism, 315 

Meun, J. de, 36 

Mickle, 326 

Middle Ages, 27, 35, 325, 372; end 
of the, 65 

Midland English, 23 

Milton, 209, 245^, 335; and blank 
verse, 70; and Shakespeare, 205, 
226; The England of, 205; Selec- 
tions from, 227; Wordsworth on, 
339; Areopagitica, 3, 77, 221; 
Comus, 218; Epitaphum Damonis, 
220; first poem, 219; Hvmn on 
the Nativity, 217; 11 Penseroso, 
217,232; L 'Allegro, 75, 217,227; 
Milton's Life, 216; lycidas, 212, 
219; Paradise Lost, 220, 222,223, 
225; Paradise Regained, 223,225, 
Prose, 253; Reason of Chtcrch 
Governmeftt, 220; Samson Ago- 
nistes, 223, 224, 225; Sonnet on 
his Blindness, '2.1% 238; Sonnet 
on the Massacre in Piedmont, 
239 ; Tenure of Kings and Magis- 
trates, 221; Tractate on Educa- 
tion, Hi) Deborah, 223 



Minshall, Elizabeth, 223 

Miracle Play, 88, 93, 98 

Mirandola, 70 

Mirror for Magistrates, 71 

Modern English Period, 6, 313 

Modern Painters, 419 

Moliere, 6, 246 

Money in the Merchant of Venice, 
109 

Moore's History of Richard III., 
187 

Moral play, 88 

More, Sir Thos., 67, 70 

More, Sir Thos., 90 

Morley, Henry, 435; English Wri- 
ters, 13 (note), 14 (note) 

Morris, William, 428 

Morte d' Arthur. See Mallory. 

National literature, 3, 4 

Ned Softly, 259, 260 

New Learning, The, 5, 29, 65, 89, 

226. See also Renaissance. 
Newman, John Henry, 419 
Newspaper, First daily, 255 
Newton, 250 
Norman Conquest, 5, 20, 24, 37; 

Norman French, 11, 21, 22, 34 
Normandy, 20; Loss of, 22 
Normans, 20 
North's Plutarch, 71 
Northmen, 20 
Northumbria, 19 
Norton and Sackville, 70 
Novels, 420 

Oberon, 103 
Octavius, 103 
Omar Khayyam, 2 
Ombre, 276 
Ophelia, 102 
Orlando Furioso, 71 
Ossian, 326 









INDEX. 



5" 



Ovid, 71 

Oxford, 23, 43, 66, 67, 207, 256, 

258, 345, 419 

Pageant, 93 

Palgrave's Golden Treasury, 194; 

Visions of England, 33 
Paradise Lost, Milton's, 220-225 
Pardoner, 44 
Pascal, 246 

Patriotism and the drama, 90 
Peele, 91 
Penshurst, 7S 
Percy's Reliques, 325 
Periodicals, 255 
Pertelote, 46 
Petrarch, 29, 31, 34, 77; and the 

sonnet, 70 
Petre, Lord, 275 
Piedmont, 239 
Piers Plowman, 29 
Pitt and Walpole, 314 
Plantagenets, 22 
Plato, 71, 81 
Plautus, 89, 101 
Play-houses, 88 
Players, Travelling, 98 
Plutarch, 71, 106 
Poe, 352 
Poet, Etymology of the word, 69 

(note) 
Poet laureate, 336 
Poetry, Recent, 427 
Poictiers, 41 
Political liberty, 208 
Polyolbion, Drayton's, 75 
Pope, The, and France, 28; loses 

the English Church, 69 
Pope, Alexander, 313, 320, 322, 

325, 326; and his time, 274; Life 

of, 269 ; Literature after, 316; 

Proverbial quotations from, 271; 

Reaction against, 324, 325 ; Dun- 



ciad, 272, 273, 278; Essay on 
Criticism, 270, 271; Essay on 
Man, 272; Iliad, 272; Messiah, 
271; Odyssey, 272; Pastorals, 270; 
Rape of the Lock, 271, 275, 280; 
Windsor Eorest, 271 

Portia, 108, 225 

Powel, Mary, 221 

Praise of Folly, 67 

Preparation, Period of, 11 

Pre-Raphaelites, 428 

Press, Liberty of the, 255 

Printing, Invention of, 67 

Prologue, 96 

Prose, Elizabethan, 187 

Prospero, 103 

Prynne, 253 

Puritan and Elizabethan England, 
206. 

Puritan in literature, 205; Period: 
Table VII., 240, 241; Sabbath, 

245 
Puritanism, 78; and the stage, 210 
Puritans, 74 
Puttenham's Art of English Poesy, 

187 
Pym, 209 

Quarles, Francis, 211 

Racine, 6, 246 

Radcliffe, Mrs., 352 

Ragusa, 115, note. 

Railway, First, 415 

Raleigh, Walter, 75, 76, 253; and 

Spencer, 79 ; History of the 

World, 75, 190 
Ralph Roister Doister, 89 
Rambler, The, 317, 319 
Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, 320 
Rape of the Bucket, 276 
Ravenna, 29 
Reeve, 44 



5 



INDEX. 



Reform Bill, 415 

Reformation, 28, 68, 69, 206 

Religious liberty, 208 

Renaissance, 5, 27, 35, 65, 77, 81, 
104, 107, 218; Decline of the, 247. 
See also Italian influence; " First- 
fruits of the," 6S; secular, 205 

Renart, Roman du, 45 

Restoration, 210, 222, 225, 245, 

259, 313 

Revolution, Age of, 400; Era of, 
332; of July, 415 

Reynolds, 318 

Rhine, 375 

Rialto, 109, 124, 125 

Richardson, 260; Richardson's 
Pamela, 319 

Richelieu, 246 

Rights of Man, 316 

Robert of Gloucester, 23 

Robertson, 319 

Robinson, Henry Crabbe, on Cole- 
ridge, 347 

Roland, Song of ; 22 

Rollo, 20 

Roman Catholicism, 72, 80, 206, 
249, 269 

Romans, 20 

Romantic School, 325, 352 

Romaunt of the Rose, 34 

Rosalind, Spenser's, 78 

Rose Theatre, 94 

Rosicrucians, 276, 280 

Rossetti, 428 

Rowe, Nicholas, on Shakespeare, 99 

Royal Exchange, 73 

Royal Society, 250 

Ruskin, 415, 419; on Milton, 220 

Rutherford, Anne, 373 

Rydal Mount, 336 

Ryswick, 258 

Sackville, 71; and Norton, 70, 89 



St. Paul's, Cathedral, 207, School. 
67, 207, 217 

Sainte-Beuve, 325 

Saintsbury's Primer 0/ French Lit- 
erature, 21 

Salarino, 108 et sea. 

Salt, Mr., 386, 387 

Sartor Resartus, 418 

Schiller, 345, 349, 418 

Schoolmen, 30, 46, 65 

Science, Modern, 415, 428 

Scotland, 15; see Burns, Scott 

Scott, 324, 325, 326, 328, 372, 425; 
and Wordsworth, 376; as a nov- 
elist, 376; Life of, 372: Selections 
from, 379; Scott's Ivanhoe, 117 
{note), 125 (note); Kenilworth, 115 
(note); Lady of the Lake, 379; 
Poems, 375; Works, 374 

Scottish Universities, 66 

Sea- fare?; The, 13, 14 

Seneca, 71,89 

Ser Giovanni, 107 

Seventeenth Century Lyrists, 210 

Shad well, 249 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 248 

Shakespeare, John, 96, 99 

Shakespeare, 34, 271; and blank 
verse, 70; and Chaucer, 103; and 
Milton, 205, 226; and Plutarch, 
71; and the drama, 87; Carlyle 
and Emerson on, 87; in London, 
72, 94, 99, 100; Lamb's Tales 
from, 388; Life of, 96; satirized 
by Greene, 92; uniting Celt and 
Teuton, 18; Shakespeare's edu- 
cation, 99; genius, 104; love of 
the country, 98; Plays, 100-105; 
predecessors, 91; retirement and 
death, 104; ridicule of Kyd, 91 ■ 
speed in writing, 106; treatment 
of evil, 103; Works, Table of, 105; 
Classical Plays, 71; Antony and 



INDEX. 



513 



Cleopatra, 74, 100; Julius Ccesar, 
102, 103; Comedies, 101, 103; As 
You Like It, 97, 98 ; Comedy of Er- 
rors, 101 ; Love's Labour Lost, 101 ; 
Measure for Measure, 225; Mer- 
chant of Venice, 93, 101, 106, 225; 
Midsummer Night's Dream, 101, 
103; Tatning of the Shrew, 74; 
Twelfth Night, 224; Two Gentle- 
men of Verona, 101 ; Winter's Tale, 
98, 103; Historical Plays, 2, 90, 
101; Henry IV., 73; Henry V.,^, 
95; 1 Henry VI, 10 1; 3 Henry 
VI, 98; #>«ry F///., 94; A7;/^ 
John, 76; Richard II, 31, 101; 
Tragedies, 102; Hamlet, 102, 210; 
King Lear ; 2, 102; Macbeth, 102; 
Othello, 102; Romeo and Juliet, 
102; Poems; Song in ^4^ Fi?» Z//v 
//, 196; Sonnets (one specimen), 
197; Venus and Adonis, 100 

Shelley, 375, 376, 399, 400, 402; 
Skylark, 407; 7 b Night, 411 

Shelley's (Mrs.) Frankenstein, 352 

Shenstone, 322, 326 

Sheridan, 318 

Shottery, 97 

Shylock, 93, 107 

Sidney, 75, 78, 80, 253; Sidney's 
A > cadi a ,75> 1S7; Defence of Poesy, 
187 

Sir Roger de Coverley, 259, 263 

Sir Toby Belch, 224 

Sismondi, 276 (note) 

Slavery, 315 

Snitterfield, 96, 97 

Socialism, 28, 30, 33 

Somersetshire, 15, 335 

Songs, Elizabethan, 194 

Sonnet, 70 

Sophocles, Antigone of, 2 

Southampton, Earl of, 100 

Southey, 324, 333, 345 



Southwark, 38, 94 

Spanish Armada, 15, 76, 90, 206 

Spanish tragedy, 91 

Spectator, 258 

Spenser, 65, 218, 404; as a poet, 80; 
Life of, 77; Spenser's Amoretti, 
79; Colin Clout, 79; Epithalamion, 
79; Faerie Queene, 71, 76, 79, 80; 
Prothalamion, 79, 82; Shepherd's 
Calendar, 78 

Sports, 245, 315 

Squire, Chaucer's, 40 

Stage, see Drama 

Steam, 415 

Steele, 255; Steele's Christian Hero, 
257; Funeral, 257 

Stevenson, R. L., 376 

Stowe, 90 

Stratford-on-Avon, 96, 97, 101; 
Shakespeare's retirement to, 
104 

Stuart's, 208; restored, see Restora- 
tion 

" Sturm und Drang," 325 

Style, 3 

Suckling, 2IT 

Summoner, 44 

Surrey, Earl of, 69 

Swift, 272, 279; Swift's Gulliver s 
Travels, 319, 323 * 

Swinburne, 428 

Symonds on Early Plays, 95 

Tabard Innj 38 

Tapecer, 43 

Tasso, 71 

Taller, 255, 257, 258 

Taylor, Jeremy, 187 

Telegraph, 415 

Tennyson, 414, 427, 429; Selec- 
tions from, 480; Crossing the 
Bar, 489; Tennyson's Idylls of 
the King, 67; /;/ Memoriam, 432; 



5i4 



INDEX. 



Lady of Shalott, 82; Locksley 
Hall, 430; Tears, 4S7 

Teuton and Celt, iS; in Shake- 
speare, 104 

Teutons, 15 

Thackeray, 376, 415, 423 ; on 
Steele, 255 

Thackeray's Works, 425 

Thames, 82-86, 277 

Theatre, 245; Early, 93; First Eng- 
lish, 88 ; for Worldlings, 77 ; 
Theatres, Private, 95 

Thomson, 321, 322 

Thomson, James (the later), 429 

Tiptoft, John, 67 

Titania, 103 

Titus Andronicus, 100 

Tottel, 70 

Tragedy, First, 76, 88, 89 

Translators of the Classics, 71 

Troubadours, see Trouveres 

Trouvere, Etymology of the word, 
69 (note) 

Trouveres, 21, '32, 35 

Tubal, 113 

Turner, 419 

Tyndale, 69; Tyndale's Bible, 207 

Tyrone, Rebellion of, 80 

Twickenham, 272 

Twyford, 269 

Udall, 89 
Una, So 
Utopia, see More 



Vaughan, Henry, 211, 216 
Venice, 67, 107-109 
Vienna, Congress of, 402, 415 
Virgil translated, 70 
Vision of Piers the Ploivman, 29 
Vitelli, 67 



Waller, 247 

Walpole, 313, 316; and Pitt, 314 

Walpole, Horace, Castle of Otranto, 
352 

Wamba, 117 {note) 

Ward's English Poets, 250 

Warner, Wm., 90 

Wars of the Roses, 65,^98 

Warwick, 98 

Warwickshire, 15,97, 100, 103, 426; 
Shakespeare's love for, 98 

Watts, Theodore, 352 

Waverley Novels, see Scott 

Webster's Corombona, 209; Duch- 
ess of Ma If, 209 

Wellington, 402; Tennyson on, 480 

Wesley, 315 

Westminster, 67 

Whitby Abbey, 19 

Whitefield, 315 

Wilberforce, 315 

William III., 258 

Windsor, 217, 218; Forest, 270 

Withers, 245 \ 

Woman, Chaucer on, 33; Pope or. 
278 

Woodcock, Katherine, 221 

Worcester, Tiptoft, Earl of, 67 

Wordsworth, 316, 324, 325, 332, 
333. 345, 34S; and Coleridge, 
346, 351; and Scott, 376; as a 
Poet, 336; Life of, 334; on 
Poetry, 326; Selections from, 
33S; Prelude, 333 

Wordsworth, Dorothy, 335 

Wyatt, 69 

Wyclif, 29, 30, 65, 66; on Friars, 
42 (note) 

Wyclif 's Bible, 24, 30 

Yeoman, 41 

Young's Night Thoughts, 317 



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